Category: Golf

Annual jamboree can spring surprises and Masters champion could be at risk of repeating 2014 disappointment

It has been a 2025 for the ages for Rory McIlroy. He cemented his legacy by completing a career grand slam with victory at the Masters. Then he carried Europe on his back at the Ryder Cup, defying the venom and spite of a braying Maga crowd. Now, though, he has one final devilish sandtrap to navigate: the curse of golf at the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year award.

Only twice in the 71-year history of the event has a golfer claimed the honour: the Welshman Dai Rees in 1957, when he captained Great Britain and Ireland to Ryder Cup success, and the Englishman Nick Faldo, following his Masters success in 1989. It is a pitiful return. Especially given athletics stars have won it 19 times, Formula One drivers eight, and football and tennis players seven apiece.

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• Dane makes stunning up-and-down on final hole to beat Australian

• Rory McIlroy finishes 14th but says it has been an ‘amazing week’

Cameron Smith has come up just short in his bid for a coveted maiden Australian Open title as Denmark’s Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen made an up-and-down for the ages on the final hole at Royal Melbourne.

The pair were tied at 15-under coming to the par four-18th on Sunday and it looked as though Smith was in the box seat when he landed his second shot on the green.

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• World No 2 hits double bogey after playing under peel

• McIlroy five-under after third round at Royal Melbourne

The luck of the Irish has deserted golfing superstar Rory McIlroy, with Royal Melbourne tossing up a banana peel in the latest obstacle to his second Australian Open title.

The world No 2 was hoping to maintain the momentum of three birdies late in his second round when he arrived on course for an early tee time on Saturday, seven shots off the pace.

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• Masters champion in 1979 and US Open winner in 1984

• Post-career reputation marred by remarks about Woods

• Trump pays tribute to ‘remarkable person and player’

Fuzzy Zoeller, the two-time major champion whose genial public persona was overshadowed by a racially insensitive joke about Tiger Woods that came to define the latter part of his career, has died aged 74.

No cause of death was immediately available. Brian Naugle, tournament director of the Insperity Invitational in Houston and a longtime colleague, said Zoeller’s daughter notified him of the death on Thursday.

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• Fitzpatrick wins DP World Tour Championship in playoff

• McIlroy now one behind record for season-long crowns

An emotional Rory McIlroy hailed surpassing Seve Ballesteros by winning a seventh Race to Dubai title as more than he ever dreamed of. McIlroy lost in a playoff against Matt Fitzpatrick in the season-ending DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, having staged a dramatic late fightback with an eagle at the 72nd hole.

While his Ryder Cup teammate celebrated a third win in the event, the Northern Irishman clinched the season-long crown to eclipse the late Ballesteros’s tally of six and move one behind record-holder, Colin Montgomerie. McIlroy told Sky Sports: “It’s amazing, I had a conversation with Carmen [Ballesteros’s ex-wife] before I went out to play today and she told me how proud he would have been.

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• Trump opens LPGA career with 13-over 83

• Day’s biggest gallery trails debutante

• Sorenstam defends controversial invite

Kai Trump, the US president’s granddaughter and the eldest child of Donald Trump Jr, opened her LPGA career with a 13-over-par 83 on Thursday at The Annika, a debut round that left her at the bottom of the leaderboard and underscored the chasm between elite junior golf and a field stacked with the sport’s top professionals.

The 18-year-old amateur, playing on a much-discussed sponsor’s exemption, began her round on the back nine alongside former major champion Hinako Shibuno and Germany’s Olivia Cowan. She received warm applause when her name was announced on the par-4 10th tee and again after she drove it safely into the fairway, one of the few calm moments in a jittery start.

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• Rai wins on first playoff hole with eight-foot birdie

• Rory McIlroy third after record final round of 62

Aaron Rai held his nerve to win the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship on Sunday, beating Tommy Fleetwood on the first playoff hole after a dramatic final day.

The 30-year-old sunk a birdie from just over eight feet to seal victory, emulating his only previous Rolex Series win. That came at the 2020 Scottish Open, and was also a playoff victory over Fleetwood.

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• McIlroy received apology over fan abuse

• Eyes Dubai finale after ‘amazing 10 months’

• Calls LIV’s 72-hole shift ‘peculiar’ move

Rory McIlroy says PGA of America chief executive Derek Sprague personally apologized for the abuse directed at him and his wife during Europe’s Ryder Cup triumph at Bethpage Black and that the gesture helped close the book on what had been a bruising week.

“I got a lovely e-mail from Derek Sprague apologizing,” McIlroy told BBC Sport ahead of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship. “Erica worked with Derek at the PGA of America back in the day, so we know Derek and his wife pretty well. He couldn’t have been more gracious or apologetic and he wrote us a lovely letter, which we really appreciated.”

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• Tour’s name partly based on Roman numeral reference

• Leading players want better preparation for majors

LIV Golf has surprisingly backtracked on one of its founding principles by announcing tournaments in the fourth season of the Saudi Arabian-backed league will be played over 72 holes. Until now, LIV has proudly operated over 54 holes and three days, with the name itself partly based on a Roman numeral reference point. Could a rebrand to LXXII be imminent?

The dramatic shift, which is believed to have come after pressure from players, means LIV will soon mirror the schedule traditional golf tours it once tried to upstage. LIV will, however, continue to run both individual and team competition elements.

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• Teenager receives sponsor exemption for the Annika

• Kai Trump, 18, is due to play college golf at Miami

Donald Trump’s granddaughter will be taking a detour on her way to playing college golf at the University of Miami – Kai Trump will make her LPGA Tour debut next month.

The 18-year-old received a sponsor exemption on Tuesday to play in the Annika at Pelican Golf Club from 13-16 November, the penultimate event on the LPGA schedule. The tournament, which has a prize purse of $3.25m (£2.45m), is prestigious and typically has one of the strongest fields of the year outside the majors. Nelly Korda is the defending champion.

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• Jury rules Nicklaus defamed by former company

• False claims tied him to $750m LIV Golf offer

• 85-year-old legend awarded $50m in damages

Jack Nicklaus, the 18-time major champion, has won a $50m verdict in a defamation case against his former company, bringing an end to one of golf’s most bitter business feuds.

A jury in Palm Beach County, Florida, found that Nicklaus Companies – the firm he founded and later sold – defamed him by spreading false claims that he had considered a $750m offer to become a public face of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf League and that he was no longer mentally fit to manage his business affairs. The six-person jury ruled that the company’s actions damaged the 85-year-old’s reputation and exposed him to “ridicule, hatred, mistrust, distrust or contempt”.

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• World No 5 secures two-shot victory after final round 65

• Fleetwood says son Frankie’s suggestion spurred him on

Tommy Fleetwood held off Japan’s Keita Nakajima to secure a two-shot victory in the DP World India Championship – and celebrated an eighth DP Tour win with son Frankie on the 18th green.

Fleetwood, who had ended his long wait for a first PGA Tour title at the Tour Championship to claim the FedEx Cup in August, produced a superb seven-under final round of 65 to finish at 22-under in Delhi.

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• Focus on unruly fans ‘is obscuring Europe’s performance’

• ‘I’d like to shift the narrative,’ says Northern Irishman

Rory McIlroy is eager to shift discussion of last month’s Ryder Cup from the dominant theme of unruly spectators to the “incredible” strength of Europe’s display.

Luke Donald and his European team secured back-to-back Ryder Cup wins after reaching what ultimately proved an unassailable position within two of the event’s three days.

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