The Five: Rory McIlroy’s future, Collin Morikawa’s new look highlight storylines to follow at Truist Championship

Get ready for a busy stretch of golf. This week’s Truist Championship begins a seven-week run that includes three Signature Events and two major championships.

It’s the time of the year when all players are trying to peak with vital, career-altering tournaments coming in rapid succession. The Truist is a rousing opener to this stretch, this year hosted at an unfamiliar spot, which leads off our top storylines to follow this week.

Philadelphia Cricket Club’s debut

It’s always a treat when the PGA TOUR travels to a new course, adding a level of intrigue, depth and unknown that often dissipates when returning to the same venues annually.

This week’s Truist is a perfect example. Its central storyline is the golf course – The Philadelphia Cricket Club, which is pinch-hitting as host this year with Quail Hollow set to host the PGA Championship next week.

The historic A.W. Tillinghast design has gotten limited reps as a test of professional golf. It hosted the PGA Professional Championship in 2015, a PGA TOUR Champions major in 2016 and the 2024 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship – none of which offer great insight to how TOUR pros will attack it this week.

From what is known, the course will rank as one of the shortest that the TOUR has played this season. Of the schedule thus far, Philadelphia Cricket Club is longer than only Pebble Beach Golf Links, Waialae Country Club and La Quinta Country Club.

Some standout holes to watch: The 14th, which is a devilish 122-yard drop-shot par 3, and the par-5 15th, featuring a mid-fairway named the “Great Hazard.” A section of long rough, and cross bunkers that will test the guile of those who challenge it. The course underwent a drastic restoration in 2013 that returned the course to its Tillinghast roots, full of short grass around the greens, distinctive contouring and dramatic bunkering.

Variety is refreshing and The Philadelphia Cricket Club will provide a dose of novelty in what should be a fun week.

Which direction does Rory McIlroy go?

This is a storyline to track for the next three months, but it will remain the most consequential from week to week as well. Which direction does Rory McIlroy go after his Masters victory?

Under one line of thinking, which seems to be the prevailing one in the post-Masters analysis, McIlroy’s breakthrough green jacket victory could free the Northern Irishman up. With all the baggage shed and the doubt erased, will a new, unburdened McIlroy wreak havoc on the rest of the golf world? It’s certainly possible.

But could it go the other way? McIlroy spent the last decade trying to end his major championship drought, with a specific focus on Augusta National and the career grand slam. With that box checked, could McIlroy take his foot off the gas? That’s also a distinct possibility, one that follows the general human condition. Once you’ve reached the mountain top, where else is there to go?

McIlroy played the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, but the Truist offers our first glimpse at McIlroy back in the traditional 72-hole individual stroke play setting. Will he pick up where he left off?

Collin Morikawa’s new look

For the first time in his professional career, Morikawa has a new full-time caddie. And we’ll get our first glimpse at his new-look team at the Truist.

Morikawa split with longtime caddie JJ Jakovac last week to nab Joe Greiner, who was only briefly without a job after he chose to part ways with Max Homa last month. Greiner stayed busy in his few weeks without a full-time loop, filling in for Justin Thomas and winning alongside him at the RBC Heritage.

How much difference can Greiner make for Morikawa? It’s no secret that Morikawa is trying to vault himself onto a tier with McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler. By the numbers, Morikawa has played well enough to warrant their company, but he can’t truly count himself among them until he wins at a higher clip. Morikawa has not won since the 2023 Baycurrent Classic and has struggled repeatedly to close out tournaments.

"Sometimes things just aren't feeling right," Morikawa told Skratch last week. "And I think when people look at it from the macro perspective of, 'okay, you know, Collin's playing great.' He's, you know, contending, he's trying to close out tournaments, and even at the beginning of the year, everything looked very, very good. Sometimes, you know, on the golf course, things just don't feel right."

Golf tournaments are won on the margins, where fractions of strokes gained and a few inches can, and often do, dictate winners and losers. Morikawa is hoping Greiner can help him come out on the right side of those margins.

Who’s in form for PGA Championship?

With the Truist leading straight into the PGA Championship, there will be no question about who is playing well entering the second major of the season. Nine of the top-10 players in the world are in the field – the lone exception being Scheffler, who just blew away THE CJ CUP Bryson Nelson field for his first victory of the year.

Can someone find form at Truist and parlay that momentum into a strong showing at the PGA? To level set where we are at, here’s a look at the PGA TOUR players who have played the best over the last three months, per Data Golf.

1. Rory McIlroy
2. Scottie Scheffler
3. Russell Henley
4. Daniel Berger
5. Justin Thomas
6. Collin Morikawa
7. Tommy Fleetwood
8. Justin Rose
9. Michael Kim
10. Shane Lowry

Tom Kim’s motivation

This isn’t actually a Truist Championship storyline because Tom Kim isn’t playing the Truist Championship. Kim’s playing the ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic, the Additional Event running concurrently with the Truist.

It’s surely not the tournament Kim hoped to play this week, but it’s a telling sign of where Kim’s game is – and the margins that can separate the two fields. Kim finished 59th in the FedExCup last year, outside the needed top-50 that would have secured him spots in all this year’s Signature Events. Kim is 41st in the Official World Golf Ranking, outside the top 30, which also would have qualified him for the Truist. And at 78th in this year’s FedExCup, he’s having a solid season but not one that’s good enough to play his way into the tournament through the Aon Next 10 or Aon Swing 5.

Thus, Kim is playing in Myrtle Beach this week. That should put a pep in Kim’s step, the highest-ranked player in the field, to regain his top form. Kim has not finished inside the top 30 of a tournament since a T7 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February, and he’s missed two of his last three cuts. Can he use the ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic as a get-right week and proper tune-up for the PGA Championship?