Rory McIlroy

The Tournament That Discovered Sergio García Returns to Valencia This Week

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Before the Majors, They Play El Saler

Every July, the future of European golf assembles on the Mediterranean coast south of Valencia, and few people outside junior golf circles notice. This week is no exception. The European Young Masters 2026 begins today at Parador de El Saler, bringing together 120 of the continent’s best under-16 golfers from 33 countries, competing individually and in the Nations’ Cup team format. It is a small event by spectator standards. It is not a small event by any other measure.

A Roll Call Worth Knowing

120 of the continent's best under-16 golfers from 33 countries
The names attached to this tournament’s history explain why it matters. The first European Young Masters was held in 1995, and its inaugural boys’ champion was Sergio García. Since then the boys’ and girls’ titles have passed through the hands of Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland, Jon Rahm, Carlota Ciganda, Suzann Pettersen, Georgia Hall, and Matt Fitzpatrick, among others. Whoever lifts the trophy this weekend joins that list. Nobody watching will know yet whether they belong on it. (Polski Związek Golfa)

The Course Doing the Testing

El Saler is not a gentle proving ground. Built in 1968 by Javier Arana, widely regarded as the defining architect of Spanish golf, the course sits inside the El Saler Natural Park on the Mediterranean shore, its front nine running through beach-links terrain reminiscent of Scotland and its back nine turning inland through pine forest.

120 of the continent's best under-16 golfers from 33 countries

Bernhard Langer holds the course record. Professionals, amateurs, institutions, and the specialised press have long ranked El Saler among the finest course layouts anywhere. (European Golf Association) Golfers wanting to walk the same links can do so at El Saler Golf Course, with the on-site Parador de El Saler putting rooms a short walk from the first tee.

A Nations’ Cup With Real Stakes

Alongside individual medals, the tournament runs a Nations’ Cup: each country’s three best daily scores from its four representatives are combined, and the lowest total after three rounds of stroke play wins. Spain won that inaugural Nations’ Cup in 1995 and has claimed it more times than any other country since — a small but pointed detail for a tournament staged on home Valencian soil.

European Young Masters 2026

Junior tournaments rarely make headlines, and that is precisely why they reward attention. Somewhere in this week’s field at El Saler is very possibly a name that will be familiar within a decade. Golfers keen to test the same coastline for themselves can browse Costa Blanca golf holidays and see what drew Arana, Langer, and now Europe’s best juniors to this stretch of Mediterranean links.


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The PGA Tour’s 2028 Overhaul: Two Tiers, Match Play and Pine Valley

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Promotion, relegation, no sponsor exemptions — and a Tour Championship that might finally be worth the name

The dust had barely settled on Wyndham Clark’s second U.S. Open title at Shinnecock Hills when the PGA Tour landed another story. On Tuesday at TPC River Highlands, CEO Brian Rolapp stepped to a podium and delivered the most significant structural overhaul in the Tour’s history. Starting in 2028, the Tour’s new model will include two separate series of tournaments running concurrently — the PGA Tour Championship Series and the PGA Tour Challenger Series. Golf, in other words, has finally borrowed football’s best idea.

PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp addresses media at TPC River Highlands during the 2026 Travelers Championship

Two Tracks, Running at Once

The Championship Series is the premium tier. It will feature up to 24 events, including 16 signature events, The Players Championship, four major championships, and season-ending events. Each signature event will be a 72-hole stroke-play tournament with average field sizes of 120 golfers and 36-hole cuts to the top 65 and ties, with a purse of at least $20 million. There will be no sponsor exemptions.(ESPN)

The Challenger Series sits beneath it as a genuine proving ground. It will consist of a minimum of 20 tournaments with purses of at least $4 million and 144-man fields, with around seven elevated events played during Championship Series off-weeks. Win twice on the Challenger track, and a player earns immediate promotion to the top flight.

PGA Tour graphic for the Championship Series and Challenger Series structure launching in 2028

Promotion, Relegation — and a Last Chance

At least the top 90 players in the Championship Series points list will retain their membership the following season, with another 20 promoted from the Challenger Series each year. Those who fall outside the top 90 are not cut loose immediately. Golfers facing potential relegation will be able to compete in a “last chance” series of four to six events in the autumn. Any golfer who fails to regain Championship Series status and doesn’t advance through those events will be eligible to compete in the Challenger Series the next season. It is promotion and relegation, applied to golf. The Premier League figured this out sixty years ago.

Tiger Woods chaired the Future Competition Committee that produced the recommendations, alongside Patrick Cantlay, Adam Scott and Camilo Villegas, among others. Rolapp described the outcome as a model grounded in meritocracy, with clearer pathways, higher stakes and more consistency when the best players compete together.(ESPN)

The Playoffs Finally Get Interesting

The Tour Championship — long the least compelling event in its own playoff — is overdue a reinvention. From 2028, it will leave East Lake and rotate to prestigious courses that the Tour has rarely or never played, including Pine Valley Golf Club in New Jersey, Cypress Point Club in California, and Seminole Golf Club in Florida. The postseason will also incorporate match play: a World Cup-style pool format with 32 players in groups of four vying for 16 final spots, then a small-field match play final at one of the world’s great courses — no ropes, no corporate buildout. Just golf at the places it was meant to be played. (The Fried Egg)

Tommy Fleetwood mid-swing

Where European Golf Fits In

The announcement carries real consequence on this side of the Atlantic. The future autumn schedule will feature a limited series of elevated international events with top players from the Championship Series, co-sanctioned by the DP World Tour. How many DP World Tour finishers earn direct Championship Series status is still being finalised — but the pathway matters, and the conversations are very much live.

Rory McIlroy, who had described the Challenger Series concept as a glorified version of the Korn Ferry Tour during his U.S. Open press conference, tempered his position once the full details landed, calling it a positive step for professional golf. High praise, by Rory’s standards.

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The courses that make European golf worth playing are not waiting for the PGA Tour to reorganise itself. They are available now — and in considerably better weather. Browse our Algarve golf courses →


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Europe’s Open: Five Names Worth Backing at Royal Birkdale

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Two majors down. One to go. And it happens to be the most European one.

Royal Birkdale Golf Course Southport

The 2026 major season has been, by any reasonable measure, a European one. Rory McIlroy defended his Masters title at Augusta in April — the fourth player in history to win back-to-back Green Jackets. Aaron Rai won the PGA Championship in May, becoming the first English-born player to claim a major since 1919. Two of the three majors played so far this year have gone to Europe. The fourth, the oldest and the most naturally European of them all, arrives at Royal Birkdale on 16 July. Here are the five names worth backing.

Tommy Fleetwood — The Hometown Favourite

Tommy Fleetwood mid-swing

If there is a script written for this Open, it ends with Fleetwood’s name on the trophy. He grew up in Southport. He knows every gust off the Irish Sea, every quirk of that coastline — and, one suspects, every pub on the high street. The gallery at Birkdale will carry him loudly, and for four days. He finished tied eleventh at Shinnecock Hills last weekend. His links record is exceptional. The only thing Fleetwood has never done is win a major. Birkdale in July, in front of a crowd entirely on his side, feels like the moment that changes.

Aaron Rai — The Man With Momentum

Aaron Rai with the Wanamaker Trophy, Aronimink, May 2026

Three weeks ago, Rai won the PGA Championship at Aronimink. He did it without any of the drama that typically surrounds major week — calmly, methodically, with the composure of someone who had done it before. He hadn’t. He was also tied eleventh at Shinnecock Hills last weekend. The form is there. The belief, clearly, is there. Links golf will suit him. This is a player who could win two majors in a calendar year, and if that thought has not yet crossed his mind, it will have crossed his caddie’s.

Rory McIlroy — The Links Specialist

Tommy Fleetwood mid-swing

McIlroy won The Open at Royal Liverpool in 2014. He has six major titles and back-to-back Masters victories. His Shinnecock weekend was painful — a promising start that unravelled over two difficult back nines — but he has already confirmed the next two weeks will be spent playing links golf at home. The Scottish Open follows on 9 July, four days before Birkdale. There is a reason McIlroy talks about The Open the way other players talk about Augusta. The links game is the one he trusts most. He is not the favourite. He is, however, dangerous.

Shane Lowry — The Experience Card

Tommy Fleetwood mid-swing

Lowry won at Royal Portrush in 2019 in conditions that resembled a weather event more than a golf tournament. He won anyway. He is the sort of player who gets sharper when the wind gets up and the occasion gets heavy. Royal Birkdale in July can be both. Lowry will not feature prominently in the early conversations about this Open. That is almost certainly how he would prefer it.

Robert MacIntyre — The One Worth Watching

Tommy Fleetwood mid-swing

The young Scotsman plays links golf as though he was born to it — which, on the west coast of Scotland, he essentially was. MacIntyre has been building quietly toward a major for two years. The ingredients are there: the game, the temperament, the pedigree. Birkdale, with the right wind and the right week, might be where the building finally stops.

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The 154th Open Championship begins on 16 July. If it has you thinking about golf in rather more agreeable temperatures, the Algarve’s coastal courses offer firm fairways and Atlantic winds year-round — the next best thing to a week on the Lancashire coast. Browse our Algarve golf holidays and start planning.


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