Rory McIlroy (Photo By Cem0030)
Defending champion Rory McIlroy heads a star-studded field at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the year’s first Signature Event.
The world No. 2 will contend against the likes of world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, Justin Rose and red-hot Chris Gotterup.
The Northern Ireland golfer, making his season debut, has won three times in his season debut on the Tour. He won the CJ Cup in 2021 and 2022 as well as the Pebble Beach Pro-Am last year in his first starts of respective years.
Last year he closed with weekend rounds of 65-66 at Pebble Beach to claim a two-stroke victory over Shane Lowry. He leads the field here as the player with the most PGA Tour victories with 29 to his name.
As for Scheffler, he is has never won here in his two prior appearance, He was T6 in 2024 and T9 last year.
He comes into the tournament, after finishing T3 at the Phoenix Open with a blazing bogey-free, 7-under 64 that almost propelled him into a playoff for the title. He enters the the week with 17 straight top-10 finishes on Tour, the first player since Billy Casper in 1965 to accomplish the feat
He had also won his first start of the season at The American Express, his 20th career Tour title and is in fine form to deny McIlroy’s title hopes.
Also making his season debut is world No 4 Tommy Fleetwood. The reigning FedExCup winner had recorded a total of eight top-10s and only missed one cut (U.S. Open) in 19 starts last season.
This will be his fourth appearance at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, with his best finish coming last year at T22.
Gotterup is the player in form, and makes his debut in the championships with two titles in his bag this season – Sony Open in Hawaii and the Phoenix Open.
He had won last week’s Phoenix Open with a birdie-3 on the first playoff hole over Hideki Matsuyama. Matsuyama will also be looking to be back on track in hopes of starting the year with his fourth straight top-15 finish.
Justin Rose showed that he was back to his finest form with a seven-stroke triumph at the Farmers Insurance Open. The win has propelled him to to No 3 in the world rankings, the second-oldest player in the top-three behind Vijay Singh.
Also in the fray is Jordan Spieth, who win here in 2017, and making his 14th career tournament appearance.
The Pebble Beach Pro-Am features an 80-player field with no cut, a $20 million purse and 700 FedExCup points to the winner.
The event is played over two courses (Pebble Beach Golf Links, Spyglass Hill Golf Course), with amateurs competing alongside professionals the first two rounds, with competition limited to professionals only over the final two rounds at Pebble Beach.
The field features 42 of the top 50 players in the world including 18 of the top 20. The only two players missing the event are an injured world No. 12 Justin Thomas and No. 17 Patrick Reed.
Apart from McIlroy, Rose and Spieth, the event will also see four other former champions in the fray – NIck Taylor (2020), Daniel Berger (2021), Tom Hoge (2022) and Wyndham Clark (2024).
