Golf

Major(s) News & Notes December 18, 2025

by
Scoops
December 18, 2025

The final tournament with top-50 world ranking implications is underway with the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open. According to Nosferatu, only Ryan Gerard (two-way T4 finish) and Daniel Brown (Win) can make it to The Masters at the expense of Taylor Pendrith and Sam Stevens.

Gerard opened with a four-under-par 68 and sits one off the lead after darkness suspended play. He booked the trip of 10,000 miles and 27 hours in a bid to make it to Augusta National in April. Ryan French talked to Gerard about the long-shot bid that’s off to a great start.

It’s an admirable effort that started with Gerard capturing his first PGA Tour win earlier this year in the Barracuda Championship (played opposite The Open as a co-sanctioned event and giving him access to DP World Tour events). He also finished T8 at the PGA in May. You gotta love the effort even if he doesn’t pull it off.

Rory McIlroy shows off a gift from caddie Harry Diamond

Speaking on the Shotgun Start podcast, Rory McIlroy said he has already tested golf balls that would conform under 2028’s new testing rules and says he will see little difference in distances.

“If you talk to the players that say they’ve tried the rollback ball and they’re critical of it, it’s usually from one manufacturer,” he said. “I have a very good friend in Shane Lowry who plays a certain brand of golf ball and he noticed no difference at all.”

Let’s put on the brakes for a second and offer thoughts and prayers to this poor company out there struggling to find a ball that works for their players. Since McIlroy plays a Taylormade ball and Lowry a Srixon, that likely leaves Titleist, Bridgestone, and Callaway who haven’t found a ball their players like.

Of course, no company would ever give out a faulty product in hopes their staff brats would declare the sky is fall over losing a few yards. Nor could any company be that pathologically obsessed with opposing the rollback that they’d risk destroying relationships with top players and potentially impact almighty shareholder value. But hey, whoever this company is, they now have two years after the original optional-local rule 2026 deadline (for competition) was postponed.

Continue Rory.

“By the time we play these balls in 2028, there’s not going to be a difference,” McIlroy said of the extra two years of lead time granted when the PGA Tour and PGA of America whined like toddlers at the behest of their corporate overlords. “Or, the difference is going to be so marginal that it’s not going to make a difference.”

McIlroy told the Shotgun Start gang that the extra time means manufacturers will find more workarounds even after all the moaning. (I presume we’ll see those extra billions spent on R&D in upcoming earnings reports).

“The equipment manufacturers have more money to do R&D and test and get around the regulations,” he said before suggesting other parts of the bag need regulating. “Do you limit the size of the clubheads? Approaching it one way with the golf ball is one thing, but I think you’ve got to approach it from all angles. The ball is a good start, but these equipment manufacturers are so good and have so many resources that by the time we play this thing in 2028, there’s just not going to be a difference between what we have now and what we might have in three years’ time.”

McIlroy discussed hitting balls at the TGL’s arena and getting similar results no matter where he hit it on the clubface.

“You’re just hitting it as hard as you can,” McIlroy said. “It comes out of the heel or out of the toe a bit and it’s going to be fine, that’s just what technology has done.”

Also discussed in the 35-minute appearance:

On finally winning the Masters on his 17th try: “If I was ever going to do it at Augusta, it was always going to have to be that way. Just throwing up all over myself the last few holes.”
On his final round playing partner Bryson DeChambeau: “I felt like that was going to be the toughest thing I would have to deal with that day was Bryson himself. I felt like he was going to have a portion of the crowd and I was going to have a portion of the crowd and then [I was] just having to deal with that a little bit.”
On Bob Rotella’s remedy: “He said, well, just make him invisible. ‘I said, well, what do you mean?’ He goes, well, ‘just don’t, don’t engage. Don’t look at him. Don’t, you know, he’s like, just, just get lost in your own little world. You’ve got Harry beside you, like, you know, have him be your companion and you just get lost in that world.’ And that’s, that’s what I tried to do, you know, but I, yeah, I was, I was, yeah, I was, that was, you know, that was the, the one thing, like, obviously I felt like that was the biggest impediment between me and winning The Masters that day, you know? And then once it was apparent that that wasn’t going to be the biggest impediment, then I made myself the biggest impediment. That’s, I mean, I think that’s relatable to everybody.”
McIlroy briefly showed a gift he received from caddie Harry Diamond after winning the Masters and career Grand Slam. It features signatures from the five previous career Grand Slammers—Sarazen, Hogan, Nicklaus, Player, Woods—on an Augusta National scorecard. Diamond had the piece encased in glass and McIlroy said he has no plans to take it out and add his name. “I just hope I don’t have to get Scottie to sign it next year,” McIlroy joked of the World No. 1 who could become the seventh by winning the U.S. Open.

The full episode is here as part of the Start’s always entertaining year-in-review series:

John Turnbull reports on the bomb squad getting called out to Royal Liverpool after maintenance crews ran into an unexploded device found on the course.

Staff were doing routine irrigation work when they discovered a suspected artillery shell. Merseyside Police were called at midday, and the course was closed so that the bomb squad could do their thing.

Royal Liverpool Golf Club on Instagram: “An unexpected pause on…

The club’s conversion to a military site during World War II was documented in his fine piece available at the Royal Liverpool website.

Kieran Harris posted a photo on X of a freshly re-paved road behind the Old Courses’ 17th green. Now, normally road repaving does not fall under The Quad’s jurisdiction, but when this one comes into play on golf’s most infamous par-4, we take a closer look. It certainly looks smoother and more accommodating for pitch-and-run recoveries.

Perhaps there will be a final rough-up by a team of horses and spiked tires to preserve the rustic character before ~~the road reopens to traffic~~ play returns to this historic locale.

Road behind the 17th after a repaving (left) and before (right). (Kieran Harris/X)

The USGA has posted all four Walker Cup sessions from Cypress Point on YouTube: Saturday foursomes, Saturday singles, Sunday foursomes, and Sunday singles.
As part of his newly-extended GolfNow partnership with Versant, Rory McIlroy will launch Firethorn Productions, “a new media and production company that will produce original content, including documentary and long-form storytelling, branded commercial campaigns, live fan experiences and special events.” Firethorn also, coincidentally, being the name of Augusta National’s 15th hole.
Johnson Wagner is set to join CBS’s golf broadcasts as an on-course reporter and, according to SBJ’s Josh Carpenter, “is not expected to continue with his “Live From” segments at Golf Channel.” (Carpenter/SBJ/X.com)