Valhalla Golf Club hosts the PGA Championship for the fourth time this year.
The course designed by Jack Nicklaus last hosted the major in 2014, when Rory McIlroy won his second Wanamaker Trophy. That infamously was the Northern Irishman's most recent major win. However, McIlroy arrives at Valhalla after successive wins on the PGA Tour at the Zurich Classic and the Wells Fargo Championship.
Tiger Woods has also previously enjoyed success in Louisville, winning a three-hole playoff against Bob May in 2000 to make it back-to-back PGA Championship wins. The 1996 edition also went to a playoff, with Mark Brooks winning his one and only major after beating Kenny Perry in his home state, Kentucky, on the first extra hole.
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McIlroy has also highlighted the similarities for him coming into this tournament compared with a decade ago. “It’s really funny, so going into Valhalla in 2014, I had won my last two starts, and going into [the PGA] this year, I’ve won my last two starts," he has said.
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The Open at Hoylake and the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational were McIlroy's two successes going into Valhalla that year. "I just need to try to replicate whatever I did in 2014, just try to do that all over again.
"I’m feeling really good with my game. I need to stay in my own little world and not get too far ahead of myself.
Valhalla Golf Club also hosted the Ryder Cup in 2018 (Getty Images)"But if you can step on to the first tee at Valhalla on Thursday and feel as good about my game as I did [on Sunday], I think I’ll have a good chance."
McIlroy has also acknowledged: “Coming into this week, at a golf course I am comfortable with, my golf swing feels more comfortable than it has done. Going to a venue next week where I have won, it feels like the stars are aligning a little bit. But I have a lot of golf to play and a lot of great players to try to beat."
However, Nicklaus himself is not writing off another former champion also being competitive at the course he designed.
“Tiger has the ability to still play, but obviously doesn’t play as well as he did, and I think a lot of his is physical ailments,” Nicklaus has said. But I watched him hit balls, and he hits the ball pretty well. It’s just trying to keep his body together.
“I don’t know if he can walk 72 holes. He can be competitive for at least two rounds, because that’s what he did at Augusta. … If he can be competitive in the third, then certainly he can be competitive in the fourth. It's sort of a progression in how you work.”
Woods will play for the first time since the Masters at Valhalla. He is at the PGA Championship for the first time since withdrawing in 2022 before the final round.
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