Rory McIlroy has all the momentum he could want heading into the PGA Championship as he tries to end a drought in the majors that has lasted a decade.
He also has a major distraction.
McIlroy is coming off two straight victories, one of them a team title with Irish pal Shane Lowry in New Orleans, the other secured with an exquisite back nine at Quail Hollow Club to rally past Xander Schauffele on Sunday in the Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The PGA Championship begins Thursday in Louisville, Kentucky, at Valhalla Golf Club, the site of his fourth and most recent major triumph 10 years ago. And if that wasn't enough, rain has pounded an already soft course with more showers expected, the conditions that favor power and aggressive play, right up McIlroy's alley.
The distraction is an impending divorce from his wife of seven years, a stunning turn of events in so many ways. There was no public hint of any trouble, and most peculiar of all is the timing.
The petition to divorce in Palm Beach County, Florida, came on Monday — the day after he won at Quail Hollow and the day before he made his way to Kentucky for the year's second major tournament, with the news breaking a day before he held a news conference in conjunction with the event.
McIlroy released a statement through his management team Tuesday confirming the divorce and saying he wanted to "ensure this difficult time is as respectful and amicable as possible." McIlroy's team asked that his news conference be limited to 10 minutes — less time than it took the PGA of America to craft an introduction reminding the media of his desire not to talk about it.
The 35-year-old from Northern Ireland gave long answers to five questions about Valhalla, his confidence level, his approach to playing well. That led to fewer questions, a total of seven. The shortest answer came when he was asked about his energy level and how he was feeling.
"I'm ready to play this week," McIlroy said.
It's not like this PGA Championship was short on subplots in the first place.
Masters champion Scottie Scheffler's wife had their first child on May 8, and the No. 1 player in the Official World Golf Ranking arrives having not competed in three weeks since winning for the fourth time in his past five starts. Only four players since 1960 have won the first two majors of the year.
LIV Golf League player Brooks Koepka is coming off his first victory of the year on that circuit but won the PGA Championship for the third time a year ago, giving him hope of joining Tiger Woods as a four-time winner of the PGA of America's big annual event.
"I'm just looking forward to a major championship," said Koepka, who turned 34 earlier this month and has a pair of U.S. Open titles to go with his trio of PGA Championship triumphs. "That kind of gets my excitement going."
Woods is playing, too, still believing at age 48 he has a 16th major title in him, even while acknowledging that it doesn't help to have played so little golf. This will be his third tournament of the year, and one of them — the Genesis Invitational, which he hosts at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles — lasted only 24 holes because of illness. He played the Masters and made the cut, then finished last among the remaining players.
And then there's McIlroy, a player who is not unfamiliar with distraction. He long has been the loudest voice opposing LIV Golf, going back two years before the circuit funded by Saudi Arabian money even launched. And then he changed his tune and cared only about unification.
McIlroy was on the PGA Tour policy board, then he left the board. He thought he had a path back onto the board until that was shut down last week. He has a lot going on.
And then came news of the divorce, leading to curiosity how this will affect his game. It didn't seem to bother him at Quail Hollow, not with that eight-hole stretch he played in 8 under in the middle of his final round for a 65.
Rewind to 2014, when he was engaged to tennis star Caroline Wozniacki. The wedding invitations had just been sent when McIlroy broke it off with a phone call. The news came out at the BMW PGA Championship, the biggest event on the European circuit. He wound up winning for the first time that year, then captured two majors and a World Golf Championship.
McIlroy had not played at Valhalla since he won in near darkness in 2014, managing to squeeze in a practice round between spells of showers.
He won in January in Dubai at a DP World Tour event, but his record on the PGA Tour had been paltry until a few weeks ago, with just one top-10 finish in 2024. Still, he looked free and fun winning with Lowry at the Zurich Classic last month in New Orleans. He looked to be at his best at Quail Hollow.
McIlroy thought back to last summer, when he ran off eight straight top-10 results, including a victory in the Scottish Open.
"It doesn't seem like that long ago that my game has felt this good," McIlroy said. "But I would say from a technical standpoint, some of the shots that I hit last week ... when I can see those three-quarter shots and those wedge shots starting on the right line, that obviously gives me a lot of confidence."
The course is longer than it was in 2014 — 7,609 yards, sure to play every bit of that as soft as the fairways have been — though McIlroy said it felt like the same place. Now it's a matter of conjuring up the same feeling.
"I think it's all about confidence and momentum, and I have a lot of confidence and quite a bit of momentum coming into this week," he said. "It's just about trying to keep that going.
"I think this is a golf course that allows you to play with freedom because it's a big golf course. The corridors are wide, not too dissimilar to last week at Quail Hollow, so you can open your shoulders up off the tee and try to take your chances from there."