Few places on earth must feel more comfortable to Rory McIlroy than Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, N.C.

And with Scottie Scheffler taking the week off, the Northern Irishman is favored to win the Truist Championship for a record fifth time when the signature event field tees off Thursday.

“I really feel like this tournament … got my career going, especially on the PGA Tour,” McIlroy said this week. “Getting my first win on Tour in 2010. Then it’s been a pretty fruitful place since then.”

McIlroy prevailed at the tournament at Quail Hollow, previously called the Wells Fargo Championship and the Quail Hollow Championship, in 2010, 2015, 2021 and 2024. Sepp Straka is the defending champion this week, but the Austrian won the 2025 Truist at Philadelphia Cricket Club, a one-year relocation as Quail Hollow hosted the PGA Championship instead.

It’s the final week before players head to Aronimink Golf Club for the PGA, and while Scheffler is preparing for the second major of the year at home, most of the rest of the top 10 in the world are in Charlotte. McIlroy is hungry to add to his six major titles after repeating as Masters champion earlier this spring.

“I’ve spoke about this a lot, I felt like winning the Grand Slam (in 2025) was like this — was going to be this life-changing thing and in some ways it was, but in other ways I had to remember like, ‘No, I still have a lot of my career left and I want to keep playing and keep competing,'” McIlroy said.

“I’m excited for the road ahead. I’m excited for this week, I’m excited for Aronimink next week.”

While McIlroy has shown top form this season, there may be no hotter players in the sport than the duo of Matt Fitzpatrick and Cameron Young.

Fitzpatrick has won three of his past four starts and two straight at the RBC Heritage and Zurich Classic of New Orleans, the latter a team event he played with his brother Alex. The Englishman could become the first player to win three PGA Tour starts in a row since Dustin Johnson in 2017.

Young won The Players Championship in March and doubled his win total for the year at last week’s Cadillac Championship, also a signature event.

“For me at the moment, I think it’s just trying to maintain the same approach each week,” Young said, noting how he took three weeks off between The Players and the Masters. “… I feel like I just picked up where I left off after The Players in terms of mindset and physically I had had time to practice at home. I think it’s a good thing to learn for me that, you know, I can take a couple weeks off and just come back and keep beating the same process.”

Golfers are trading in Trump National Doral’s “Blue Monster” for Quail Hollow’s “Green Mile,” a brutally challenging three-hole finish with two long par-4s and a precarious par-3 17th with water surrounding more than half the green.

“I think with the weather we had last year for the PGA the greens were a little bit softer, the rough was a little bit higher,” Fitzpatrick said. “This week it’s actually the opposite. The greens seem to be very, very firm and the rough’s a little shorter, which is nice. Yeah, I’m really kind of shocked at how firm the greens are right now and that’s definitely going to make it a great test.”

Seventy-two golfers will play in the no-cut, $20 million event. If the winner is not already qualified for the PGA Championship, he will be added to next week’s field.

–Field Level Media

Max Holloway is working out in preparation for a fight that might never occur, but as he sees it, there’s really no other choice.

“I mean, it’s just, it sucks,” Hollway said in an interview with Paramount+. “I would just like to get one back.”

The former UFC featherweight champion is in training camp for a potential rematch with double title winner Conor McGregor in Las Vegas this July at UFC 329, but without a signed contract in hand.

The uncertainty is due in part to questions over when or if McGregor wants to step back into the Octagon, especially considering the Irishman hasn’t fought since July 2021. McGregor was rumored to be on the card scheduled for the White House this summer, but his purported opponent, Michael Chandler, instead will oppose Mauricio Ruffy.

Still, Holloway is expressing unfailing interest in trying to secure a deal to face off against McGregor again. The two squared off in 2013 and McGregor won by unanimous decision, though McGregor left the match with a torn ACL.

“My head space is good, it’s straight,” Holloway said. “I kinda know when I fight. We kinda know where we want to fight, why we want to fight, so just getting in the gym, getting there, getting it done.

“It’s a huge fight. Anything with Conor McGregor is huge, but having history with the dude, being able to get one back would be cool.”

Holloway is eager to erase the poor impression left by a one-sided loss to Charles Oliveira last time out, a March 7 unanimous-decision defeat that cost him the symbolic BMF title that rests with the UFC’s “baddest” competitor.

“You’re only as good as your last fight, they say, and we’re going to get everybody forgetting about that last fight as soon as possible,” Holloway said.

For McGregor, the biggest draw in the sport and the first athlete in the sport to hold two weight class titles simultaneously (featherweight and lightweight), it would mark a return from a devastating broken tibia and ensuing drug suspension that have sidelined “Notorious” for the better part of five years.

Holloway, a 34-year-old Honolulu native, projects as a heavy favorite over McGregor, 37, due to the latter’s long layoff.

–Field Level Media

CJ Abrams had three hits including a grand slam, Miles Mikolas pitched into the sixth inning and the host Washington Nationals routed the Minnesota Twins 15-2 on Wednesday night.

Brady House, Drew Millas and Jose Tena each had two hits including a home run for the Nationals, who collected 14 hits. Abrams also had two doubles and five RBIs, and James Wood and Jacob Young each had two hits.

Mikolas (1-3), signed as a free agent in the offseason, began the game with an 8.23 ERA. The right-hander pitched a season-high 5 1/3 innings, giving up two runs on three hits. Mikolas retired 16 of the 19 batters he faced to earn his first Washington win.

Three Washington pitchers held Minnesota to three hits. Matt Wallner had two hits including a home run for Minnesota, which had won two straight.

Twins starter Bailey Ober (3-2) went five-plus innings, allowing five runs on six hits.

Minnesota took a 1-0 lead in the third when Luke Keaschall doubled and scored on a Wallner single.

Washington did not get a baserunner against Ober until Wood singled leading off the fourth. Wood stole second with one out and Curtis Mead walked. Abrams followed with a double to score Wood.

Wallner homered off Mikolas in the fifth to put Twins up 2-1.

Young singled leading off the bottom half and Millas homered to center to give Washington a 3-2 lead.

In the sixth, back-to-back doubles by Abrams and House ended Ober’s night. Tena greeted reliever Andrew Morris with Washington’s third straight double to make it 5-2. With two outs, Nasim Nunez tripled to right and the lead was 6-2.

Daylen Lile walked leading off the bottom of the seventh and, with two outs, House homered to center to make it 8-2.

Young singled, Millas doubled and Wood singled them both home in the eighth. Washington loaded the bases and Abrams smacked a grand slam to right-center, the second of his career. Tena followed with a homer to make it 15-2.

–Field Level Media