News

Morning 9: Rory on being #1 | New Tour media deal? | Chris Couch’s Moonlight Tour domination

Published

6 years ago

Feb 13, 2020

Ben Alberstadt

1. Rory on No. 1

Phil Casey at the Belfast Telegraph…“This is McIlroy’s 96th week in total as World No.1, one behind the record for a European player held by Sir Nick Faldo, although his lead over fellow four-time Major winner Koepka is just 0.03 points.”

“Everyone keeps saying congratulations but the work’s only started, it’s staying there is the hard part,” McIlroy told a pre-tournament press conference.

…”I’ve always said it’s a by-product of doing the right things week in, week out, playing well, trying to win tournaments, and if I can continue to do that then hopefully that thing takes care of itself.”

“Asked if it was something of an anti-climax to become No.1 during a week off, McIlroy added: “I’ve already that euphoric moment in 2012; I won the Honda Classic to get to No.1 in the world, Tiger was coming down the stretch, I was able to hold him off. That to me was the really cool moment.”

Full piece.

2. Speculating about the next deal

Per Geoff Shackelford…”Multiple well-placed sources confirmed to GeoffShackelford.com a major change in the next PGA Tour media rights deal.”

“Modeled in some ways after the Olympic Broadcast System, production will be handled by a primary PGA Tour operation providing a world feed to likely broadcast partners CBS, NBC, Golf Channel, ESPN+ and GolfTV. The networks will retain production independence with the final product, along with familiar voices by producing announcers, graphics, replay and other extras beyond the “world feed”.”

“The move allows the PGA Tour to more cohesively produce coverage and improve PGA Tour Live streaming presentation that has often looked under-produced.”

Full piece.

3. Woods on wanting to win at Riv

Great stuff from PGATour.com’s Ben Everill putting Riviera in context for Tiger Woods-and what not having won there yet means to the golfer…

“Woods recounted a story from his childhood where, as a spectator, he ran over to the eighth green to watch Tom Watson hit a chip shot from near the gallery, only to be moved out of the way by Watson’s caddie Bruce Edwards. He recounted it when he joined the TOUR and was told playfully, “well, you were in the way.” Woods still beams at such stories from his younger years.”

“For me to have experiences like that here at Riv and to have now this be my event.. (it’s great), and hopefully on Sunday we’ll be having this discussion a little bit more,” Woods added.

“I’ve played in a number of events over the years and for me not to win an event that has meant so much to me in my hometown (is tough). I’ve done well in San Diego, I’ve done well at Sherwood, just haven’t done well here. So hopefully I can put together this week and we’ll have a great conversation on Sunday.”

Full piece.

4. Rory not looking to battle with Brooks…outside the ropes

Golf Channel’s Ryan Lavner…”When he steps onto the tee Thursday morning to start the Genesis Invitational, McIlroy will do so as the world No. 1, the reigning FedExCup champion and 2019 PGA Tour Player of the Year. Of course, Koepka would be quick to point out – as he did last fall – that the accolades are nice, but what McIlroy lacks is another major title, at least since Koepka came on Tour full time in 2015. That dig was factual but piercing. As McIlroy said in October, with a slight grimace: “I didn’t need him to remind me.”

“In a sport desperate for a rivalry, McIlroy seems to have little interest in retaliating publicly, even after those biting comments. He said there’s no added satisfaction nipping Koepka. Asked by a reporter about the “fun back and forth” they’ve had over the past few months, McIlroy interjected: “Have we? I feel like it’s been a one-way street.”

“But Koepka has done some chirping, right? Again, McIlroy interrupted: “But that’s not my area to comment on. That’s his prerogative.”

Full piece.

5. New BMW Championship locale

Golf Digest’s Joel Beall…“The BMW Championship is heading to Baltimore next season, according to the Chicago Tribune.”

“Teddy Greenstein writes that Caves Valley, located in Owings Mills, Md., will be named as the BMW host in 2021 in an announcement on Monday. The Tom Fazio design-which has the reputation of a player’s course-has previously held the 1995 U.S. Mid-Am, 2002 U.S Senior Open, 2005 NCAA Championship, the inaugural International Crown in 2014 and the 2017 Senior Players, but never a Tour event. It is ranked No. 152 in Golf Digest’s America’s Second Greatest 100 list.”

Full piece.

6. The incredible saga of Chris Couch

Quality writing from Brian Wacker here in a feature on Chris Couch’s Moonlight Tour dominance…

“Last week, Chris Couch won his 34th golf tournament in the last 12 months. No, that’s not a typo. That it came in his 118th start in that span is also impressive-it’s a winning percentage that would rival that of Tiger Woods’ best years on the PGA Tour.”

“It felt good, I gotta tell ‘ya,” the 46-year-old Floridian says in a gentle drawl.

“Of course, none of those victories for Couch came on the PGA Tour. They took place on the Open Golf America Tour, more commonly known among its participants as the Moonlight Tour given how most everyone playing also has a day job. It really isn’t even a tour so much as an assortment of one- and two-day events at a handful of courses in the Orlando area, including West Orange Country Club, where Couch now spends his days giving lessons and playing.”

Full piece.

7. He did indeed!

Mike McAllister at PGATour.com…“Yes, Justin Thomas is well aware of what Tiger Woods said this week about their undefeated partnership at the Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne.”

“I carried his ass in Australia,” a smiling Tiger said Tuesday during his press conference for this week’s The Genesis Invitational.”

“A few hours later, JT saw Tiger and offered a response….”All I know is,” he told Woods, “if I didn’t make a putt, you’d have a one next to your halve column.”

“So you’re welcome for that.”…You may recall that it was Thomas, not Woods, who buried a 17-foot putt on the 18th hole to win their Foursomes match against Hideki Matsuyama and Byeong Hun An on that Friday in mid-December. Afterwards, Thomas shouted, “I love me some me” as he and Woods celebrated.”

Full piece.

8. Hamlin vs. Fowler (at MJ’s new place)

Michelle Martinelli, For the Win… “The good news for NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin is he didn’t lose any money playing golf against Rickie Fowler this week.”

“The bad news for him is he didn’t win any, either.”

“Hamlin, Fowler and former NASCAR driver Michael Waltrip visited Michael Jordan’s new exclusive golf course, Grove XXIII, in Hobe Sound, Florida (near Jupiter), and the defending Daytona 500 champion said he bet Fowler “a lot and ended up with nothing.”
“I tied Rickie on the final hole,” Hamlin said Wednesday at Daytona International Speedway. “Thank goodness that got me back square, so that was a lot of fun. But it’s just amazing to see how good pros are. You think you’ve seen people that are good at their craft; go see a professional athlete do his craft. And it’s just amazing to watch.”

Full piece.

9. GolfWRX Shop

As I’ve mentioned before, we’re expanding our YouTube content. Our resident Master Club Builder, Ryan Barath, will be hosting the GolfWRX Shop series, and in the first video since our reboot, he shows you a driver build using a new TayorMade SIM head.

I think the content is excellent, and I’m excited for the future of our channel in general and the Shop in particular.

Check it out, and if you like what you see, I’d appreciate if you subscribe.

News

Testing Lorem Ipsum

Published

2 hours ago

May 13, 2026

Pro Shop

What is Lorem Ipsum?

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Why do we use it?

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).

News

2026 PGA Championship betting odds

Published

2 days ago

May 12, 2026

Gianni Magliocco

Scottie Scheffler leads the betting ahead of the second major championship of the year, with the World Number One a +345 favorite to get his hands on a second PGA Championship.

Rory McIlroy who won the Masters back in April is a +800 shot to complete half of the calendar slam at Aronimink Golf Club this week, while Jordan Spieth can be backed at +5900 to become a career grand slam winner.

Here is the full betting board for the 2026 PGA Championship courtesy of DraftKings.

Scottie Scheffler +345 – (Check 0ut his WITB here)

Rory McIlroy +800 – (Check out his WITB here)

Jon Rahm +1300
Cameron Young +1500
Bryson DeChambeau +1700
Xander Schauffele +1850
Matt Fitzpatrick +1950
Ludvig Aberg +2000
Tommy Fleetwood +2600
Collin Morikawa +3500
Brooks Koepka +3900
Justin Rose +4300
Russell Henley +4600
Si Woo Kim +4700
Justin Thomas +4800
Robert MacIntyre +5300
Patrick Cantlay +5300
Viktor Hovland +5400
Tyrrell Hatton +5500
Jordan Spieth +5900
Sam Burns +6000
Hideki Matsuyama +6200
Adam Scott +6400
Rickie Fowler +7000
Chris Gotterup +7400
Patrick Reed +7400
Min Woo Lee +7800
Ben Griffin +8000
Sepp Straka +8400
Shane Lowry +9000
Akshay Bhatia +9200
Maverick McNealy +9200
Joaquin Niemann +9200
Jake Knapp +9200
Jason Day +9600
Kurt Kitayama +10000
J.J. Spaun +10000
Harris English +10500
Nicolai Hojgaard +11000
Gary Woodland +11000
David Puig +11000
Michael Thorbjornsen +12000
Jacob Bridgeman +12000
Keegan Bradley +12500
Corey Conners +14000
Alex Fitzpatrick +15000
Sungjae Im +15500
Sahith Theegala +15500
Harry Hall +15500
Alex Noren +16000
Thomas Detry +16500
Marco Penge +16500
Kristoffer Reitan +17000
Alex Smalley +17000
Wyndham Clark +17500
Sam Stevens +17500
Keith Mitchell +17500
Daniel Berger +18500
Ryan Gerard +20000
Nick Taylor +20000
Rasmus Hojgaard +21000
Dustin Johnson +21000
Pierceson Coody +23000
Aaron Rai +24000
Jordan Smith +24000
Angel Ayora +24000
Bud Cauley +25000
Matt McCarty +26000
Jayden Schaper +26000
Brian Harman +27000
Taylor Pendrith +27000
Ryan Fox +27000
J.T. Poston +27000
Cameron Smith +29000
Ryo Hisatsune +29000
Michael Kim +29000
Max Homa +29000
Denny McCarthy +29000
Tom McKibbin +30000
Rico Hoey +32000
Matt Wallace +32500
Ricky Castillo +33000
Haotong Li +33000
Michael Brennan +34000
Max Greyserman +36000
Stephan Jaeger +37500
Christiaan Bezuidenhout +37500
Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen +39000
Aldrich Potgieter +40000
Andrew Novak +42000
Patrick Rodgers +42500
Daniel Hillier +42500
Max McGreevy +46000
Billy Horschel +48000
Chris Kirk +48000
Ian Holt +49000
Casey Jarvis +49000
William Mouw +50000
Steven Fisk +50000
John Parry +50000
Nico Echavarria +52500
Garrick Higgo +52500
John Keefer+55000
Matthias Schmid +57500
Austin Smotherman +57500
Sami Valimaki +60000
Andrew Putnam +60000
Lucas Glover +62500
Daniel Brown +62500
Jhonattan Vegas +75000
Emiliano Grillo +80000
Mikael Lindberg +85000
Adrien Saddier +100000
Bernd Wiesberger +100000
Elvis Smylie +110000
Stewart Cink +130000
Kota Kaneko +130000
David Lipsky +150000
Chandler Blanchet +150000
Andy Sullivan +150000
Joe Highsmith +180000
Adam Schenk +200000
Travis Smyth +200000
Davis Riley +225000
Martin Kaymer +400000
Brian Campbell +400000
Padraig Harrington +450000
Kazuki Higa +450000
Jordan Gumberg +450000
Ryan Vermeer +500000
Austin Hurt +500000
Tyler Collet +500000
Timothy Wiseman +500000
Shaun Micheel +500000
Y.E. Yang +500000
Michael Block+500000
Mark Geddes+500000
Luke Donald+500000
Bryce Fisher+500000
Jimmy Walker +500000
Jason Dufner +500000
Jesse Droemer +500000
Jared Jones +500000
Garrett Sapp +500000
Francisco Bide +500000
Zach Haynes +500000
Paul McClure+500000
Derek Berg +500000
Chris Gabriele +500000
Braden Shattuck +500000
Ben Polland +500000
Ben Kern +50000

Tour Photo Galleries

Photos from the 2026 PGA Championship

Published

2 days ago

May 11, 2026

GolfWRX Staff

GolfWRX is on site for the second major of 2026: The PGA Championship from Aronimink in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.

The tournament’s location, just outside Philadelphia, and its status as a major championship mean GolfWRXers are in for a treat: WITBs from a strong field, custom gear celebrating the PGA Championship, and the rich culture of the City of Brotherly Love — we have noted a relative absence of cheesesteak-themed items thus far this week, but most of the rest of the usual suspects are well represented.

Check out links to all our photos below.