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12H AGO

The First Look: Truist Championship

5 Min Read

The First Look

Golf is Hard at Quail Hollow Club

Golf is Hard at Quail Hollow Club

    Written by Adam Stanley

    The Truist Championship returns to its usual home, the Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, after a one-year hiatus.

    The return of the Truist Championship to Quail Hollow also marks the return of Rory McIlroy to the PGA TOUR after his Masters win in April, becoming just the fourth golfer in history to go back-to-back at Augusta National.

    The final week prior to the PGA Championship and the second major of the year sees most of the TOUR’s best teeing it up as some serious major prep.

    Here’s everything else you need to know as the TOUR returns to Quail Hollow.

    FIELD NOTES: McIlroy returns to some happy hunting ground. McIlroy has won at Quail Hollow four times in his career, including 2024, the last time the Truist Championship was played in Charlotte. McIlroy has played a fairly limited schedule so far in 2026, but, along with his Masters victory, he also has a T2 at The Genesis Invitational. … After his wire-to-wire victory at the Cadillac Championship, Cameron Young is back in action. Young has had a spectacular start to his 2026 campaign with two wins – including at THE PLAYERS Championship – and five top-10 finishes in nine events. … Despite McIlroy’s dominance at this event, there has never been a player who has successfully defended his title. Sepp Straka, who won by two last year in Philadelphia, is hoping to change that. Straka has three top 10s so far this season, including last week at the Cadillac Championship. He finished T8 the last time the Truist was played at Quail Hollow. … Matt Fitzpatrick returns to action after he and brother Alex (who is also in the field of the Truist Championship after finishing T9 at the Cadillac Championship) won the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. It was Fitzpatrick’s third win of 2026 and second in a row. No golfer has won three PGA TOUR events in a row since 2017. … In all, seven of the top 10 golfers in the Official World Golf Ranking – including Fitzpatrick, Young and McIlroy – are teeing it up at Quail Hollow. That includes Xander Schauffele, who was runner-up in Charlotte in both 2023 and 2024.


    HIGHEST-RANKED PLAYERS IN THE FIELD
    World RankingFedExCup
    2. Rory McIlroy2. Matt Fitzpatrick
    3. Matt Fitzpatrick3. Cameron Young
    4. Cameron Young5. Jacob Bridgeman
    5. Justin Rose6. Si Woo Kim
    7. Tommy Fleetwood7. Akshay Bhatia
    9. Xander Schauffele8. Chris Gotterup
    10. J.J. Spaun9. Rory McIlroy
    11. Chris Gotterup10. Ludvig Åberg
    12. Robert MacIntyre11. Sepp Straka
    13. Sepp Straka12. Xander Schauffele

    SPONSOR EXEMPTIONS: Tony Finau will tee it up at the Truist Championship looking for a springtime spark to his season. Finau has notched two top-20 results so far this year. His best result at the Truist Championship came last year when he finished T15. Finau finished T19 at the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow last year. … Max Homa is back in action after playing the Cadillac Championship last week as well. His best finish this year was a T9 at the Masters. Homa returns to Quail Hollow, where he’s had so much success in his career – two wins and two other top-10 finishes in Charlotte. … Mackenzie Hughes and Webb Simpson will bring some local flair to the Truist Championship as they’re both residents of the Quail Hollow area. Simpson is playing for the first time since he withdrew from the Valero Texas Open. He has two career top-five finishes at the Truist Championship… Hughes, meanwhile, is eager for a kickstart to his campaign. Hughes – who lost in a playoff at the ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic last year, which is played alongside the Truist Championship on the TOUR’s schedule – has missed three straight cuts and replaced his long-time caddie, Julien Trudeau, a few weeks ago.

    SIGNATURE EVENT STORYLINES: The Truist Championship is the sixth Signature Event on the PGA TOUR schedule in 2026. … With his T7 at the Cadillac Championship, Alex Smalley jumped up 10 spots in the Aon Next 10 and knocked Sudarshan Yellamaraju into the No. 11 spot – short by just nine points. … Matt McCarty also earned his way into the Truist Championship via the Aon Next 10 after his T9 at Doral. He bumped Patrick Rodgers from the No. 10 spot. … The rest of the Aon Next 10 remained the same with some shuffling of spots. … Kristoffer Reitan bumped Jordan Smith from the No. 5 spot in the Aon Swing 5 thanks to his T14 at Doral. He earned the fifth and final spot in the Aon Swing 5 by a mere half-point. … The rest of the Aon Swing 5 from the Cadillac Championship stayed the same.

    FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 700 FedExCup points.

    COURSE: Quail Hollow Club, par 71, 7,583 yards. Quail Hollow returns as host of the Truist Championship after a one-year hiatus, as it hosted the PGA Championship last year. The Charlotte gem, in preparation to host a major again, recently underwent a renovation that included redoing all the tees and greens, installing a new drainage system, and for the first time in nearly 20 years, overhauling the bunkers. The club was originally laid out by George Cobb in the early 1960s and re-worked by Tom Fazio. The "Green Mile" closing stretch is annually one of the toughest on TOUR.

    72-HOLE TOURNAMENT RECORD: 265, Wyndham Clark (2023).

    18-HOLE RECORD: 61, Rory McIlroy (Round 3, 2015).

    LAST TIME: Sepp Straka won last year’s Truist Championship, which was contested at the Philadelphia Cricket Club. He fired an opening-round 63 – two off the round-of-the-week shot by Keith Mitchell, a 61 – and held steady through the balance of the week. Straka shot a final-round, 2-under 68 to top Justin Thomas and Shane Lowry by two shots – his second victory of the season. Lowry shared the 54-hole lead with Straka but couldn’t get anything going in Sunday’s finale, shooting an even-par 70.

    Patrick Cantlay, Jacob Bridgeman and Tommy Fleetwood finished four shots back and tied for fourth, rounding out the top five.

    Last year’s PGA Championship, which was contested at Quail Hollow, was won by Scottie Scheffler with a score of 11-under par. He topped a trio of golfers by five shots.

    How to follow (all times ET):

    Special programming alert:

    • PGA TOUR LIVE Betcast presented by DraftKings: Get your betting coverage and analysis for the Truist Championship on ESPN+ throughout the week for an all-day, watch-and-bet experience for golf fans.
      • Thursday-Friday: 7:30 a.m.-2 p.m.
      • Saturday-Sunday: 7:30 a.m.-1 p.m.
    • TOURCAST Range:

    Television:

    • Thursday-Friday: 2-6 p.m., Golf Channel
    • Saturday: 1-3 p.m., Golf Channel; 3-6:30 p.m., CBS
    • Sunday: 1-3 p.m., Golf Channel; 3-6 p.m., CBS

    PGA TOUR Live on ESPN+:

    • Thursday-Friday: 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m.
    • Saturday-Sunday: 7:15 a.m.-6 p.m.

    PGA TOUR LIVE is available exclusively on ESPN+ and consists of four streams:

    • Main feed (Stream 1): Primary tournament coverage featuring the best action from across the course
    • Marquee group/featured group (Stream 2): New "Marquee group" showcasing every shot from each player in the group
    • Featured groups/featured hole (Stream 3): Traditional PGA TOUR LIVE coverage of two concurrent featured groups
    • Betcast presented by DraftKings (Stream 4): Betting coverage and analysis throughout the week
    • Thursday-Friday: 12-6 p.m.
    • Saturday-Sunday: 1-6 p.m.

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