Rory McIlroy starts search for consistent excellence at Pebble Beach

The start of the PGA Tour's signature event schedule attracts the likes of Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood and more to make their season debuts stateside at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, beginning Thursday in Pebble Beach, Calif.

The tour usually kicks off each season with the Sentry (formerly Sentry Tournament of Champions) on Maui in January, but that event was scrapped this year due to drought conditions on the island.

Thus, the first $20 million purse of the season is up for grabs at Pebble Beach Golf Links and Spyglass Hill Golf Course. The elite field of 80 will play one round apiece on each course before Pebble Beach hosts the Saturday and Sunday rounds.

This is where McIlroy won his first title in 2025, which vaulted the Northern Irishman into a memorable year that saw him take The Players Championship, end his 11-year major drought at the Masters and prevail with Team Europe at the Ryder Cup.

Now McIlroy is searching for a more consistently great year, the kind Scottie Scheffler was able to put up in 2025.

"If I had a critique of myself last year, (it's) that I didn't bring the consistency that I maybe would have wanted post the Masters," McIlroy said. "I think some of that is, you know, sort of understandable, but Scottie just had his 17th top-10 in a row. He brings -- even you look at him last week, he shoots 2 over in the first round and he just pieces it together again, finds a way, has a chance to win on Sunday. He's relentless.

"I've had nice runs like that, but I've always been a little more up and down. I think anyone that wants to catch Scottie or get anywhere close is going to have to consistently bring that sort of game week in and week out like he does."

Scheffler and McIlroy, the top two players in the world rankings, will share a field this week for the first time since the Tour Championship last August. McIlroy stayed busy, playing in India for the first time and adding the Australian Open to his schedule before the DP World Tour's two-week Dubai run more recently.

Scheffler won The American Express in his first start of 2026 and tied for third at the WM Phoenix Open last week despite opening with a 73. His 66 consecutive made cuts is the longest active streak on tour.

FedEx Cup champion Tommy Fleetwood of England makes his first tour start in the U.S. since the Tour Championship, which marked his first time winning on American soil.

"You take confidence from the golf that you've played. It was an amazing period of golf for me. I said at the time that I'm kind of hopeful that's how I play golf from this point on," Fleetwood said.

"There's still plenty of things that I haven't achieved that I want to in the game, so they keep you focused and they keep you going and they keep you motivated. I think I'm not as good of a golfer, still, as I'd like to be, so that's still there."

Among the more well-established PGA Tour stars is a new name who has rocketed to fifth in the world rankings.

Chris Gotterup, 26, leads the FedEx Cup standings thanks to two wins in his first three starts of the season. After capturing the season-opening Sony Open in Hawaii, he beat Japan's Hideki Matsuyama in a playoff last Sunday in Phoenix.

The former college golf star has won four times on tour in a short span, including head-to-head against McIlroy at last year's Scottish Open. This is his first time playing the Pebble Beach event.

"I think everyone understands out here how hard it is to win," Gotterup said. "We were joking around -- Scottie was following me at lunch and he's like, ‘I'm just going to eat what you're eating.' I was like, yeah, he's doing pretty good on his own so I'm not too worried about him.

"At some point when we get some time off I'll go home and celebrate with everyone. Yeah, it's been a lot of fun."

--Field Level Media