Alfred Dunhill Links Championship first-round leaderboard

-11 Fichardt (RSA); -10 John (Aus); -9 Wilson (Eng), Jamieson (Sco), Hillier (Aus)

Selected others: -7 Ram (Spa), Hatton (Eng); -5 Harrington (Ire), Fitzpatrick (Eng), MacIntyre (Sco); -4 Fleetwood (Eng); -3 McIlroy (Nir)

South African Darren Fichardt hit a superb 11-under-par 61 at Kingsbarns to lead by one stroke on day one of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.

The 49-year-old world number 462 finished one off the course record of 60 which was struck by his countryman Branden Grace in 2012.

Fichardt last struck a round of 61 at the 2001 Sao Paulo Brazil Open.

His last European Tour win was at the Joburg Open in 2017.

On Thursday, he hit nine birdies, two eagles and two bogeys for a one-shot lead over Australia’s Cameron John.

England’s two-time Dunhill champion Tyrrell Hatton and Spain’s Jon Rahm both went round in seven under at Carnoustie – traditionally the hardest of the three courses used in the Pro-Am event on the DP World Tour.

Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre carded a five-under 67 also at Carnoustie, where Tommy Fleetwood and defending champion Matthew Fitzpatrick both shot 68.

Rory McIlroy was playing the same course but his three-under 69 in favourable scoring conditions was only good enough for tied 73rd.

The Old Course at St Andrews is the third course in the tournament’s rotation, where new Zealand’s Daniel Hillier hit the round of the day – a nine-under 63 to out him in a tie for third.

Rory McIlroy hopes the presence at the Dunhill Links Championship of the two men centrally involved in talks aimed at ending the split in men’s professional golf is a “good sign” progress is being made.

McIlroy, competing with father Gerry in this week’s pro-am event in Scotland, will play on Friday at Kingsbarns alongside PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, who is paired with Billy Horschel this week.

World number three McIlroy will then tee up with the boss of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) Yasir Al-Rumayyan and South African LIV golf player Dean Burmester at St Andrews on Saturday.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund underwrites the 48-competitor LIV Golf league which has signed up many of the world’s best players over the last three years including Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Cameron Smith and Dustin Johnson.

Monahan and Al-Rumayyan will be in the same fourball along with their professionals on Thursday’s day one when they tee off at Carnoustie.

“There’s no better place than the home of golf to try and get everyone together and talking,” McIlroy told BBC Sport NI.

“I think it’s a great thing and good sign that Jay and Yasir are going to play together. And obviously you’ve got quite a big contingent over from LIV that are playing in this event.”

Canadian Mike Weir’s International Team endured a nightmare start to the Presidents Cup on Thursday but the former Masters champion insisted his squad still believe they have time to turn things around and end the Americans’ dominant run.

The U.S., who entered the week as a prohibitive favorite to secure a 10th consecutive Presidents Cup, swept the opening day fourballs session at Royal Montreal Golf Club 5-0, leaving many to wonder what, if anything, Weir’s team needs to change.

“Well, it’s certainly not the team unity and the team spirit. Our guys are still very positive,” Weir told reporters.

“Look, reality is it wasn’t a great day, but it’s like the first period of a hockey game the way I look at it. You’re down, but there’s a long way to go. Still significant sessions left.”

The perfect start marked the fifth time in Presidents Cup history that a team swept a round, and the first time since the Americans did it in the third round of the 2007 edition which was also at Royal Montreal.

Weir’s 12-man team cannot afford a similar result during Friday’s foursome matches when the U.S., a dominant group with five of the top 10 players in the world, will be eager to move closer to the 15-1/2 points needed to retain the trophy.

But Weir is not about to panic and, apart from the results, is encouraged by the energy his players showed in matches that were mostly all within reach down the stretch.

“It didn’t go our way today, but the guys are positive. I saw a lot of great things,” said Weir. “The U.S. team played fantastic today. Doesn’t mean we’re not going to do that tomorrow. The energy is good in our room.”

One plan for the International team is an all-Canadian pairing of Corey Conners and Presidents Cup debutant Mackenzie Hughes, which could help spark what has otherwise been a rather docile home crowd.

“We hope that creates spark, but it’s been a pair in my mind talked amongst us for a long time,” Weir said.

“Not only are they good friends, but a lot of things show that it’s a great pair, too. It wasn’t like a knee-jerk reaction decision to what happened today or anything.”

Billy Horschel became the first American golfer to win the BMW PGA Championship twice when he holed a brilliant eagle to beat four-time major winner Rory McIlroy in a playoff on Sunday.

Horschel showed no sign of nerves when he sank a long putt from near the edge of the green on the second playoff hole, and then hugged McIlroy warmly.

“It’s always one of my most special weeks of the year. I enjoy coming here. I feel a sense of ease, I feel a sense of calm,” the 37-year-old Horschel said. “I know I’m not from the U.K. or London or England but I feel almost at home when I come here.”

Horschel won at Virginia Water three years ago. This year, he was locked in second place overnight with McIlroy, and they were both three strokes behind leader Matteo Manassero of Italy.

While Manassero fell back, they both carded 5-under 67s to join South African Thriston Lawrence — who posted a clinical 65 on the day — at 20 under and force a three-way playoff.

After they went back to the 18th at the storied West Course, Lawrence dropped out of contention after bogeying, while McIlroy and Horschel had birdies. But McIlroy was beaten on the next hole.

“It just shows the standard out here. If you slip up just a little bit or don’t make a birdie on a crucial hole, someone is always waiting to take advantage of that,” McIlroy said. “Two weeks in a row, I’ve played well. Just not quite well enough.”

The No. 3-ranked Northern Irishman, who won the event in 2014, now has three runner-up finishes at Wentworth.

Manassero, who won the title in 2013 the last time it went to a playoff, finished in a share of fourth with Englishmen Matthew Baldwin and Aaron Rai after carding a 1-over 73 that included four bogeys. They ended 17 under.

A victory would have put Manassero on track to qualify for next year’s Ryder Cup and to claim one of the 10 PGA TOUR cards available each year from the DP World Tour.

Talks over a potential merger between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf are yet to prove fruitful.

Rory McIlroy has explained what he thinks the stumbling blocks are over a potential merger between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf. Last year, it was announced that the two entities were in talks over a peace deal following the split in professional golf.

Those talks are yet to prove fruitful, though, leading McIlroy to question why no agreement has been reached. Speaking ahead of the BMW PGA Championship, he suggested that around half of the players on both tours are opposed to the idea of a merger.

He also blamed the Department of Justice in the United States for the lack of progress in a deal, saying: “I’d say maybe half the players on LIV want the deal to get done [and] half probably don’t. I’d say it’s probably similar on the PGA Tour.

“Just like anything, everyone’s looking out for themselves and their best interests. You know, it would benefit some people for a deal not to get done, but it would obviously benefit some people for a deal to get done.

“I think there’s different opinions amongst the players about what should happen, and I think when you have a members’ run organisation it complicates things a little bit, especially when should of those players are having to make decisions on the business side of things.

“So those are the two. I think the tours want it to happen. The investors certainly want it to happen because they can see the benefit for themselves. But right now, it’s [the] DOJ and differing opinions of the players.”

The four-time major winner will try to become a two-time Irish Open champion

A win at the 2024 Irish Open may not salvage Rory McIlroy’s major championship-less year, but it would certainly reduce the sting. That’s how McIlroy is pacing after shooting a 3-under 68 at Royal County Down on Thursday to start this year’s tournament.

McIlroy birdied the first hole and took care of the par 5s with birdies across the board at Royal County Down in his home country of Northern Ireland. And while Rory was not always accurate from tee to green, he did clean up messes like this one at the par-5 12th where he went on to make birdie.

McIlroy also closed with three consecutive birdies to go from even par on the 16th tee box to 3 under when he finished — within two of the lead held by Todd Clements, who fired a 5-under 66.

This is not the first time McIlroy has played well at the Irish Open. He famously won the 2016 edition at the K Club, but it has historically not been a place where he’s played his best golf.

“I get the buzz, but I also feel the added pressure of trying to perform at home,” McIlroy said of this year’s edition being played in Northern Ireland. “Something I’ve honestly struggled with in the past. You know, the couple Irish Opens that I’ve played in Northern Ireland, the one Open Championship I played in Northern Ireland, hasn’t went so well. I usually just try to relax and go about my business as I would at any other time of the year.”

In 2015 at Royal County Down, McIlroy shot 80 in the first round, lost 2.03 strokes to the field over the first two days and missed the cut. That was his third consecutive missed cut at this tournament, and he followed the 2016 win with another missed cut in 2017.

So, his Irish Open golf has been dodgy. It’s not as if his golf this summer has been amazing, either. McIlroy nearly won the U.S. Open at Pinehurst, but it’s been fairly bumpy since with four top 11s, including a T5 at the Olympics while playing under the Irish flag, but also a missed cut at The Open and a T68 at the FedEx St. Jude Championship.

Thursday’s performance, especially on a golf course as difficult as Royal County Down played, was a nice balm to the chaos of the summer on a difficult golf course with all the pressure that home brings about.

“It was a tough day,” said fellow Irishman Padraig Harrington, who shot a 2-over 73. “Greens are very, very fast. Playing fast. So just made conditions, even though you couldn’t have asked for nicer conditions, it was still pretty tough. … Every time you lifted your head up and looked around, you got some hope because you could see a lot of carnage going on. ‘What’s he doing over there?’

“So yeah, it was a tough day but it was actually a day to have a little bit of a look around and see that the scoring wasn’t going so well for everyone and to see that players were struggling in it.”

McIlroy trails narrowly after 18 holes, but the four-time major winner’s game looked better and more under control than it has for much of the last few months. He appears poised to get what would be a second Irish Open and fourth victory of 2024.

It’s a great match, this golfer and that course: two of the best in the world without a doubt. And while winning at Royal County Down would not add to that albatross of a major total McIlroy surely feels for much of the year, it would be a wonderful way to enter a fall in which there’s still a lot of golf left for the best golfer in his country’s history.

Tour Championship final leaderboard

-30 S Scheffler (US); -26 C Morikawa (US); -24 S Theegala (US)

Selected: -16 R McIlroy (NI), S Lowry (Ire); -11 R MacIntyre (Sco); -10 T Fleetwood (Eng); -6 A Rai (Eng)

Scottie Scheffler underlined his status as the world’s number one golfer with a dominant victory at the season-ending Tour Championship in Atlanta.

It caps a remarkable 2024 for the American who has won an Olympic gold medal, his second Masters and become the first to land successive Players Championship titles.

He is the first player since Tiger Woods in 2007 to win seven events in a PGA Tour season.

Scheffler, who started the final round with a five-shot lead over Collin Morikawa, shot a four-under 67 to win on 30 under and collect $25m (£19m) of the $100m prize fund.

He was four clear of Morikawa, who hit a 66, with another American, Sahith Theegala, in third on 24 under after a 64.

For a third successive year, Scheffler began the week on 10 under par as the leader of the FedEx Cup standings, two clear of Xander Schauffele in second, with Morikawa among a group on four under in the staggered start.

And he stayed ahead through the first three rounds to set up what looked like a straightforward final round.

His five-shot lead was six after Morikawa bogeyed the first hole.

However, Scheffler made uncharacteristic errors as he recorded successive bogeys on the seventh and eighth holes that allowed Morikawa, who birdied the fourth, sixth and eighth holes, to close to within two.

A wayward drive left Scheffler hacking out from underneath a conifer tree down the left of the seventh, while he mis-hit a greenside bunker shot on the eighth that squirted out right and ended up further away from the hole.

“I was a bit frustrated because it was quite a basic shot, but I’ve shanked it from a similar lie before,” he said.

“Ted [Scott, Scheffler’s caddie] did a good job of helping me reset. He gave me a nice pep talk there on the back of the eighth green because I looked at him like, ‘man, I don’t know about this, this isn’t looking so hot right now’.

“He gave me a little pep talk and then I was able to hit a really nice iron shot in there [on nine] and got things rolling.

“He really is a huge part of the team. I don’t know if I’d be able to do any of this without him on my bag.

“And then I did some really nice stuff to finish this tournament off.”

That “nice stuff” started on the ninth hole with a birdie, and two more followed on the 10th and 11th as Scheffler surged four clear.

Morikawa responded with a birdie on the 13th, but Scheffler drained a 15-foot eagle putt on the next to re-establish his five-shot lead, and he parred his way home to secure his first FedEx Cup title.

“Nothing fazes him,” said Morikawa, who collected $12.5m for finishing runner-up.

“Whether I was gaining some ground or he was gaining ground, it didn’t change how he walked or how he played or how he went through every shot.

“That’s something to learn. His mental game is a lot stronger than a lot of people know.”

Sunday’s prize money takes Scheffler’s official earnings for the season to around $54m and he has broken the PGA Tour record in that respect for a third season in a row.

It has also been quite the year off the course for Scheffler, who became a father for the first time in May and then just days later was arrested on the morning of the second round of the US PGA Championship for an alleged traffic offence as he arrived at the course.

He was taken to the police station and charged with assaulting a police officer but made it back to the course in time to play. All charges were later dropped.

“I feel like I’ve lived almost a full lifetime in this one year,” said Scheffler “It’s been nuts.”

Meanwhile, Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy finished the best of the UK golfers. He started the week level with Morikawa on four under and closed with a five-under 66 to end joint ninth on 16 under.

Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre had six birdies on his back nine as he shot a 64 to end 11 under, one ahead of Tommy Fleetwood who sneaked into the top 20 with a 67.

Fleetwood’s fellow Englishman Aaron Rai, who won his first PGA Tour title in August, hit a closing 70 for a total of six under.