The LPGA Tour marks the first major of the week at the Chevron Championship in the Woodlands, but the PGA Tour has one of the more unique products not far from New Orleans.
The Zurich Classic is where the PGA Tour will be suspended by this week, and its team format separates it from other regular events seen annually throughout the season. It’s always fun and different to see the best players in the world go with things in pairs.
As if the event didn’t draw you to the appeal of Team Golf, it boasts the incumbent Masters champion, who has made his first official debut since winning the Green Jacket this year. Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry won Zurich a year ago and consider defending this year’s title. Rory happens to do so as someone who has achieved a career grand slam.
McIlroy has won other titles this season as well. In 2025 alone, he won the course of several people’s dreams at Pebble Beach, TPC Sawgrass and apparently Augusta. To say his game is at its peak puts things lightly. He dances through victory in some of the most iconic places of golf.
This sounds strange, and the idea may seem faint to McIlroy, who appeared in Zurich a year ago. At that point, his game was in relatively questionable places, and he was dealing with his personal life being debated by the world.
Rory looked back on it on Wednesday, noting that things would look completely different in a year.
Yes, if you were asking me if I was sitting here in this position and everything that happened. But yeah, I honestly couldn’t do it all, professionally, personally, to a better place in my life.
Yes, it’s amazing how a year can do it. Yeah, last year’s tournament was a really cool moment for both of us. I think maybe in some way he injected a bit of joy into golf for me.
Yes, for me, I had a great year. I think this tournament was like a really good golf catalyst I played for the rest of the year.
As far as last season goes, Rory had won the Heavenly Lord by Desert Classic along with Zurich’s previous Schoen Laurie. After that victory he also won the victory at Wells Fargo. In particular, the perhaps infamous person finished second at Pinehurst during the US Open, closing the season with a victory at the DP World Tour Championship in November.
Since then, Rory has been shedding tears as pointed out. With his seven starts, he started from the world of DP throughout the calendar year. The tour title has three victories as pointed out. He won six wins in the final 25 starts around the world, 20 top 15 finishes (including TIE), and only one miscut. That’s amazing.
Note that this dataset starts from RBC Heritage (bottom of the graphics) a week before last year’s Zurich Classic. It is obviously impossible to tell Rory’s personal life is in a better place, as he alone can, but from a golf perspective he is totally right. He has experienced a huge run with the latest foot, the most earthquake of his celebratory career.
Jonathan Larson wrote rent It’s difficult to measure a year and respect the measures to do so. It is difficult to know exactly how Rory measures the last 365 days (gift or take) in his personal and professional life, but obviously a lot has happened.
Good for him.
