CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The golf world has almost moved on from last month’s historic Masters, but there’s a lingering feeling in the air this week at Quail Hollow Club that this weekend could have a similar showdown in store.
Rivalries in golf are rare. A lot has to go right for two players to go head-to-head enough times on a big stage for it to become a “rivalry.”
But in a rare gift, Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau have locked horns at two of the previous three majors. DeChambeau bested McIlroy at last year’s U.S. Open (with help from McIlroy). Rory took the green jacket from Bryson on Sunday at Augusta National.
There’s reason to believe Round 3 of this budding golf beef will take place over the weekend at the 2025 PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Club.
“I do believe you have to have a lot of distance out here,” DeChambeau said on Tuesday when asked about McIlroy’s success at Quail Hollow. “Rory is a great driver of the golf ball and his iron play is great, too. I think it’s a golf course that sets up for his shot shapes pretty well, and I think it sets up well for mine, too. We’ll see.
“Maybe I do well, maybe I don’t. But I’m certainly going to give it my all, and I know Rory is. Hopefully we can have another go at it again like the Masters.”
A budding “rivalry”
A few months after McIlroy’s collapse at Pinehurst No. 2, the two golfers took part in the Crypto.com Showdown with McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler facing off against DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka. During the pre-event availability, DeChambeau threw a jab at McIlroy while discussing his U.S. Open win.
“I’d like to get him back for what he did to me at the U.S. Open,” McIlroy said.
“To be fair, you kind of that to yourself,” DeChambeau quipped back.
Fast forward four months and the world’s two most popular golfers found themselves in the final pairing at the 2025 Masters. DeChambeau quickly grabbed the Sunday lead, but he faded by the turn, and McIlroy went on to beat Justin Rose in a playoff to complete the career Grand Slam.
After his round, DeChambeau was asked how McIlroy seemed as he prepared for the playoff.
The two-time U.S. Open Champion quickly noted that McIlroy gave him the silent treatment at Augusta National.
“No idea,” DeChambeau said after his round when asked how McIlroy was doing as he prepared for a playoff with Rose. “He didn’t talk to me at all.”
After McIlroy’s Masters win, his mental coach Bob Rotella explained that freezing out DeChambeau wasn’t about the headman of Crushers GC. It was just what McIlroy needed to do to achieve a childhood dream.
“That didn’t have anything to do with Bryson,” Rotella told the BBC. “That was just the game plan all week and we wanted to get lost in it. We didn’t want to pay attention to what anyone else was scoring, or shooting, or swinging or how far they were hitting it – we just wanted Rory to play his game. The point is, if you believe you’re going to win, just play your game and assume that if you do that anywhere near the way you’re capable of, then you will end up number one.”
The story could have died there, but that’s not where this story ends.
A few weeks later at LIV Korea, DeChambeau was asked about the juxtaposition between how he handled the final round of the Masters and how McIlroy did. The question falsely implied that McIlroy didn’t high-five or acknowledge fans during the final round, as DeChambeau did.
DeChambeau’s answer seemed telling.
“I can only speak for myself. I can’t speak for Rory,” DeChambeau said. “What I can say about myself is that I genuinely care about the game of golf and growing it globally and inspiring a bunch of people and kids, especially kids, to play this great game. So it’s my duty, as not only a professional golfer, but a bit of an entertainer, to interact and be as authentic as I possibly can be with myself and with my fans. I think it’s my responsibility to do so. I’ll continue to keep doing that because that’s what I believe in.”
On Wednesday, McIlroy was asked if he had a chance to speak with DeChambeau about freezing him out.
The response was blunt.
“I don’t know what he was expecting. We’re trying to win the Masters. I’m not going to try to be his best mate out there,” McIlroy said. “Look, everyone approaches the game different ways. Yeah, like I was focused on myself and what I needed to do. That’s really all that it was. It wasn’t anything against him or against — it’s just I felt that’s what I needed to do to try to get the best out of myself that day.”
Rory vs. Bryson part 3?
That brings us to this week at Quail Hollow Club.
There has been a lot of discourse about the course and whether or not it’s a fitting site for a major championship.
Regardless of where you stand on that debate, there’s no question what type of player Quail Hollow is set up to favor.
This is a bomber’s paradise that favors those who hit it very long, very high and very straight. (All courses reward those things, naturally, but this one places extra emphasis on how far you fly it.) Add in the immense amount of rain the course has received early this week and a soaked, soft course should set up perfectly for the two best drivers in the sport to pick it apart.
Quail Hollow Club has been McIlroy’s favorite playground in golf. He has won four times in Charlotte and is 102 under par at Quail Hollow since his breakthrough win in 2010. He owns this course, and given the way he has played so far this season, there’s no reason to believe he won’t pummel it again this week and put himself in contention for another major Wanamaker Trophy.
DeChambeau’s game is perfectly suited to the one-dimensional ask of Quail Hollow. He posted two top-10s at the course before he defected to LIV Golf and is gaining 1.97 strokes per round off the tee this year, per Data Golf. McIlroy is gaining 0.84. My colleague Sean Zak watched DeChambeau try to bring Quail Hollow to its knees during a practice round.
McIlroy and DeChambeau aren’t the only players who can overpower this PGA. Scottie Scheffler, Justin Thomas, Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele, Ludvig Åberg and others all are capable of picking apart Quail Hollow.
But all signs point to Rory and Bryson once again being the center of the golf universe this weekend. Which would be another welcome sight for a fractured pro golf world.
