Rory, J-Ro Head A Star-Studded Field At Wentworth

Missing some big-time golf?

No worries, the European Tour has you covered this week.

While the PGA Tour hangs with the chicken-pluckers at Sanderson Farms in sort of a post-graduate event for Web.com guys, the big stars are at Wentworth this week at the European PGA, one of the flagship events on the European Tour.

Just outside London, the club has drawn an all-star field that includes world’s No. 2 Rory McIlroy, No. 4 Justin Rose, No. 6 Jon Rahm and No. 9 and defending champion Francesco Molinari.

If that’s not enough, there’s Tommy Fleetwood, Paul Casey, recent winner of the Porsche Open in Germany and Open champion Shane Lowry.  The European Tour handed Shane a special honor this week for his victory at Royal Portrush.   He’s now an honorary lifetime member of the tour.

There was concern on Wednesday when Rose didn’t play in the pro-am, citing a possible knee injury issue.

“Last Thursday I slipped and jarred my knee,” Rose said in a statement. “Since then I have been getting treatment on the injury and I have been working hard with Justin Buckthorp and my medical team away from the course in order to ensure I am able to play in this week. I am doing everything I can to be fit to play on Thursday.”

Without or without Rose, it’s still an impressive field.

Of course there are some Americans in the field who simply couldn’t resist an appearance fee.  Tony Finau’s in the field and Patrick Reed continues his European vacation, playing this week while his wife wears down the credit card numbers at the shops in nearby London.

The great thing about golf this time of the year in Europe is that it comes on television early, it absolutely will not interfere with your college and NFL football games.  Nice.

Wentworth is a worthy challenge for these players.  There are a bunch of players you’d recognize easily — Henrik Stenson, Lee Westwood and Matt Fitzpatrick.

But it’s McIlroy the big crowds will come out to see.

The European media has noticed McIlroy’s goal of overtaking world’s No. 1 Brooks Koepka and asked him about the growing rivalry.

“Brooks has been undoubtedly the best player in the world for the  last couple years. I’ve been lucky that my career and my consistency  level has been good for the last 10,” McIlroy said. “I feel like they’ve  tried to create a rivalry between myself and Tiger, myself and Jordan  (Spieth), myself and Dustin (Johnson), myself and Brooks, myself and  Jason Day.

“It’s nice there’s a common denominator and it’s usually me, which means that I’m doing something right.”

Rory spoke briefly about beating Koepka for the FedEx Cup.  “I needed that mentality going into East Lake because, you know,  there was a little bit of revenge in there. He (Koepka) talked about trying to be  the dominant player in the game and that was said to me in the media  and I said, ‘He’s going to have to go through me first.’

“If that’s both of our mentalities going forward, I think that’s good for the game,” McIlroy said of his pursuit of No. 1.

Aside from the star-power in the field, this will be the first event where the European Tour takes a step toward speeding up the pace of play.  A GPS monitor will be placed on one bag in each threesome and the officials will be able to track each group’s position on the course.  It will be easier to spot a group that is out of position and easier to make that group aware of that.

And of course there’s Wentworth — a worthy challenge to all the big names in the field.

This one’s a no-brainer.  Get up early with a cup of coffee, take in some good golf then have the rest of the day free.

Perfect!