Rory McIlroy: World number two will again play events that ‘best fit’ in 2026

Rory McIlroy says he will continue to take advantage of the “luxury” of picking his own tournament schedule, even if it means missing more signature events.

The world number two is behind only American Scottie Scheffler in the FedEx Cup standings before this week’s final PGA Tour event of the year at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta which, for the first time since 2019, will not see the season-long leaders benefit from starting strokes.

The five-time major winner from Northern Ireland has been criticised this season for missing three signature events – he did not play the Memorial Tournament, The Sentry or the RBC Heritage – as well as the first event of the play-offs, the FedEx St Jude Championship.

While the 2025 PGA Tour season concludes this week, McIlroy still maintains DP World Tour commitments and will play in India and Australia, as well as at the Irish Open, before the end of the year.

“I’ll always look at the schedule at the start of the year and see what best fits me and my life, and everything else that I do with family or other opportunities that I’m pursuing outside of golf,” he said.

“This year that meant skipping a few signature events. [Next year] I might skip less, I might skip the same amount.

“The luxury of being a PGA Tour player is we’re free to pick and choose our own schedule for the most part. I took advantage of that this year and I’ll continue to take advantage of that for as long as I can.”

The 2026 PGA Tour schedule was confirmed on Tuesday and featured the addition of a ninth signature event.

The Miami Championship will be played at Trump National Doral on 31 April-3 May.

That means that in the space of seven weeks in April and May there will be two majors – the Masters and US PGA Championship – and three signature events.

“I think it’s all positive,” said McIlroy of the schedule tweaks.

“Golf builds through the January, February, March months, gets a huge popularity spike through [the Masters at] Augusta and to try and keep that momentum going through the next few weeks, through the [US] PGA, through the US Open, I think is a good thing.

“It’s quite a workload for the players to play that much golf in that stretch but it’s not as if we’re having to travel halfway around the world to do it.”