World No 1 Rory McIlroy will be joined by world No 2 Jon Rahm and No 3 Brooks Koepka in the marquee grouping for the opening two rounds of the Players Championship this week.

McIlroy began the day tied for the lead

It took Rory McIlroy four and a half years to get back his No. 1 status in the world. It could take only a week to lose it again.

McIlroy and Brooks Koepka did not contest last week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, but McIlroy moved above the American due to the vagaries of the two-year rolling ranking system.

A resort in Belek, just outside Antalya, offers real value for money and quality, heavenly courses, writes Ronan Bagnall

Tiger weighed in for the first time on two significant stories – the proposed Premier Golf League that threatens to take stars away from the established PGA and European tours and the recently released yardage report from the R&A and the USGA.

How many of golf's world number ones since 1986 can you name?

WATCHING a club challenge game recently one of our forwards scored a brilliant goal but he was still admiring the strike when his man won the resultant puckout.

Brooks Koepka has signed up for the JP McManus Pro Am in July

Australia’s Marc Leishman came from behind with a superb seven-under 65 to secure a one-stroke win at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego on Sunday.

Let’s face it, decades ain’t what they used to be. There was a time was when you knew where you stood with a decade. The sixties? Flower power and beards. The seventies? Sideburns and disco. The eighties? Everything was massive: shoulder pads, mobile phones, hair. You used to be able to tell a decade simply by looking at the trousers involved.

As the curtain falls on 2019, we asked our writers to share the moment which encapsulated all that is good about sport this year..

Rory McIlroy is by a distance the Irish sportsperson of the decade, writes Kieran Shannon.

Rory McIlroy has ruled out competing at next month’s European Tour event in Saudi Arabia.

After winning four times in 2019 and racking up 19 top-10 finishes from 25 starts to win the PGA Tour Player of the Year award, it’s been a memorable season for Rory McIlroy.

Pablo Larrazabal revealed he had taken inspiration from Tiger Woods after producing a remarkable turnaround to win the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek.

Rory McIlroy is determined to end a four-year wait for a World Golf Championships victory at the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai this week.

Tiger Woods, Ernie Els, Nick Faldo, and Bernhard Langer are among previous winners at the Kilkenny course.

Publishers Harper Collins has announced that it has acquired world rights to Tiger Wood's authored memoir 'Back'.

Their confirmation comes as an additional 100 tickets will be tendered this month for the sold-out event on July 6-7th 2020.

When starting out as a comedian, Cork man Andrew Ryan decided to go to straight to London, sidestepping the usual starting ground of Irish clubs and pubs.

Few were surprised when Munster’s Conor Murray was selected for Ireland’s Rugby World Cup team.

It wasn’t the choice of venue for this season’s Guinness PRO14 final that caught me by surprise when it was announced last week

Tiger Woods has announced he has undergone surgery on his left knee to repair cartilage damage.

Justin Thomas took command of the BMW Championship with a superb 11-under 61 to shatter the Medinah course record and open up a six-stroke lead heading into the final round.

Rory McIlroy is just four shots off the lead at the halfway stage of the BMW Championship.

Shane Lowry has recovered from a shaky start to card a two-under par 69 on the opening day of the Northern Trust.

Masters champion Tiger Woods played down an injury scare on the eve of his first appearance since missing the cut in the Open Championship as he attempts to play back-to-back events for just the second time this season.

JP McManus has set Adare Manor and Ireland the challenge of staging the greatest Ryder Cup ever as he celebrated his luxury hotel and golf resort in Co Limerick winning the right to host golf’s biggest team event in 2026.

World number one Brooks Koepka would welcome more equipment club testing during the season in the wake of Xander Schauffele’s row with the R&A at Royal Portrush.

Shane Lowry’s grandmother Emily Scanlon has revealed that his golfing success can be attributed to turf mould.

Ask any professional golfer and they will tell you just how difficult the game can be at times, whatever your standard.

As your American-based golf correspondent, I’ve got a confession to make. I didn’t fancy my first pints of Guinness. In fact, I didn’t acquire a taste for it until my first trip to Ireland a little more than a decade ago and a visit to Temple Bar’s cobbled streets between the River Liffey and Dame Street in Dublin.

Lowry, who won the Irish Open as an amateur in 2009, holed from 35 feet for another birdie on the 10th to move two shots clear of the field.

A pre-Open Championship pep talk from coach Neil Manchip propelled a previously uneasy Lowrytowards his lowest opening round in a major and the business end of the leaderboard on a rollercoaster first day at Royal Portrush. But what would Rory McIlroy have given for Lowry’s 67 at The 148th Open?

Mission accomplished. At least for one day. James Sugrue achieved what he set out to do on his maiden round at The Open Championship by not shooting himself out of it after 18 holes.

As someone who has witnessed the insane levels of attention he draws at home tournaments, Rory’s performance yesterday didn’t really surprise me as I have often seen him struggle to cope with that huge expectation.

This week’s 148th Open at Royal Portrush is officially the most attended Championship staged outside St Andrews with the R&A announcing on Wednesday that there will be a record-breaking crowd of 237,750 for the tournament starting on Thursday.