The world’s elite golfers are set to converge at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, for the highly anticipated 2026 PGA Championship. This tournament marks the second major of the golf season, drawing in fans and competitors from around the globe.

Leading the pack is Scottie Scheffler, the reigning champion, who enters the tournament as the +350 favorite according to FanDuel Sportsbook. This event continues a remarkable streak for Scheffler, who has been the top betting favorite in 14 consecutive majors.

Not since the 2022 Open Championship, where Cam Smith emerged victorious, has anyone else begun a major with better odds than the 29-year-old Scheffler. His consistent performance and formidable skill set make him a perennial favorite among both fans and oddsmakers.

Hot on his heels is Rory McIlroy, positioned as the second favorite with odds of +650. McIlroy, who celebrated a victory at Augusta National just a month ago, remains a formidable contender. Despite having only participated in one event since his Masters win—finishing tied for 19th at the Truist Championship—his talent and recent form cannot be underestimated.

Interestingly, aside from Scheffler and McIlroy, no other golfer in the field has managed to secure single-digit odds, highlighting the dominance and expectation surrounding these two formidable players.

2026 PGA Championship odds

Cameron Young, this season’s breakout superstar, is right behind Scheffler and McIlroy after finishing T10 at Quail Hollow this past weekend.

A pair of LIV juggernauts, Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau, are the fourth- and fifth-favorites at 15/1 and 20/1 with Xander Schauffele (18/1) wedged in between.

Both Rahm and DeChambeau were trendy picks to win the Masters, but they both struggled. DeChambeau missed the cut, while Rahm finished T38.

They’ll also be dealing with plenty of distractions as they’re sure to be peppered with questions about the future of LIV.

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While Scheffler, McIlroy, and the favorites will get most of the support, there are plenty of intriguing prices down the board.

Robert MacIntyre, who was a popular pick at Augusta at 35/1, is 60/1 ahead of the second major of the season. Min Woo Lee, who was near the top of the board at last week’s Truist Championship, is being offered at 100/1 at Aronimink.

Hideki Matsuyama (60/1), Russell Henley (45/1), and Si Woo Kim (50/1) figure to be trendy bets at their prices.

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Michael Leboff is a long-suffering Islanders fan, but a long-profiting sports bettor with 10 years of experience in the gambling industry. He loves using game theory to help punters win bracket pools, find long shots, and learn how to beat the market in mainstream and niche sports.

WASHINGTON — As President Donald Trump resumes his role at the White House, he is displaying a more nuanced stance regarding Taiwan. This shift is stirring speculation ahead of his upcoming summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, as observers wonder if Trump might consider reducing the U.S.’s support for Taiwan, an island that China claims as its own.

In December, Trump approved an unprecedented $11 billion arms deal with Taiwan, marking the largest sale of its kind to the island. However, the delivery has yet to proceed, and Trump has openly discussed this transaction with Xi. He has also criticized Taiwan for allegedly taking over the U.S. semiconductor industry and suggested that Taiwan should compensate the United States for its protection.

Simultaneously, Trump has applied pressure on Taipei by threatening high tariffs, urging them to make substantial investments in American semiconductor production. He has also pushed Taiwan to buy significant quantities of U.S. liquefied natural gas and crude oil.

Such rhetoric is sparking debate in Beijing, Taipei, and Washington about whether the U.S. will maintain its commitment to defending Taiwan and if Trump might be influenced to alter the traditional U.S. stance towards the island.

Supporters of Taiwan are apprehensive that the island might become a bargaining chip in the negotiations between Trump and Xi, according to retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery.

“I do worry that we have a transactional president and a transactional opportunity could arise, and then we would have a challenge,” said Montgomery, now with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank that supports robust U.S. backing of Taiwan.

Rubio says US policy is unchanged

The Chinese have signaled they intend to make Taiwan a central part of the talks between Xi and Trump this week. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi raised Taiwan during a call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio to prepare for the trip, and urged the United States to “make the right choices” about its policies toward the island in order to safeguard “stability” between the two nations, according to a statement by the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

But Rubio said U.S. policy has not changed. “We don’t want to see any forced or compelled change in the situation,” he told reporters in Rome on Friday, saying it “would be destabilizing to the world.” He noted that Taiwan would not be “a feature of our trip, but it’ll certainly be an item that’s discussed.”

White House officials have underscored that Trump, who also approved $330 million in aircraft parts for Taiwan’s military in November, has already approved more in military sales for Taiwan in the first year of his second term than the roughly $8.4 billion that Democratic President Joe Biden approved over his four years in office.

Taiwan has been under pressure from the Trump administration to increase its defense spending, and on Friday its lawmakers broke months of gridlock to approve $25 billion in arms purchases. It was significantly less than the $40 billion proposal put forward last year by Taiwan President Lai Ching-te. A senior Trump administration official, who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House, said it was disappointing that the parliament did not fully fund Lai’s proposal.

Taiwanese government officials have expressed concern about China’s rhetoric ahead of the summit, though they’ve also taken some comfort from Rubio’s measured comments.

“(China) may attempt some maneuvering during the talks, but the U.S. has repeatedly reiterated, through both public and private channels, that its policy toward Taiwan remains unchanged,” National Security Bureau Director-General Tsai Ming-yen told reporters.

Xi may look to loosen US-Taiwan ties

The key question, China experts say, is just how far Xi will try to go in his effort to prod Trump closer to Beijing’s view.

China sees the self-ruled Taiwan as a renegade province, to be annexed by force if necessary. It prohibits countries it has diplomatic relations with from having formal ties with Taipei. Since establishing diplomatic relations with modern China in 1979, the U.S. has managed to stay within the framework of Beijing’s demands while maintaining informal support for Taiwan and providing it with arms.

As part of the U.S. ambiguity on Taiwan, Washington acknowledges Beijing’s position that Taiwan is part of China but does not explicitly endorse it. The U.S. has also historically stated it “does not support” Taiwan’s independence and opposes unilateral changes to the status quo between Taiwan and China.

But analysts say Xi could seek to persuade Trump – who already has demonstrated a willingness to blur the lines of traditional diplomacy – to loosen ties with Taiwan through curbs on U.S. arms sales or with informal limits on visits by prominent U.S. officials to the island. In February, Trump suggested he broke from longstanding U.S. policy and consulted with Xi on arms sales to Taiwan.

“Even if we don’t see something as dramatic as a formal shift in declaratory policy, this time around, there is always a risk that President Trump may make an off-the-cuff remark given he’s not necessarily somebody who appreciates the nuances of longstanding policy language,” said Patricia Kim of the Assessing China Project at Brookings Institution in Washington.

White House sits out Japan-China rift

A row between U.S. ally Japan and China has also raised speculation about the strength of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. In November, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said a Chinese attack on Taiwan was of concern to the region and could constitute “a survival-threatening situation” for Japan, requiring the use of force.

Trump made back-to-back calls with Takaichi and Xi that same month, though he’s remained largely silent about the spat.

“I know they have a little bit of an edgy relationship,” Trump said as he hosted Takaichi for talks in March. He added, “I’ll be speaking Japan’s praises when I’m in China with President Xi.”

Additionally, Trump’s backing of Taiwan faced scrutiny after the 2026 U.S. National Defense Strategy omitted direct mention of the island.

The best-case scenario for Taiwan

One card Taiwan holds is its robust semiconductor sector, the world’s largest, which the U.S. relies on to maintain an edge in its advanced-technology race against China.

“Trump at the very least realizes the role that Taiwan plays in the U.S.’s economic growth,” said Lev Nachman, a political science professor at National Taiwan University. “So I think that is sort of the main silver lining in thinking that nothing drastic will change in terms of policy toward Taiwan.”

While Trump is known for his transactional nature, his administration has not viewed difficult aspects of the U.S.-China relationship as “fungible” issues that can be traded, said Edgard Kagan, a former senior State Department official who served under Trump and Biden on East Asia policy issues.

“The president understands leverage. My experience of being in meetings with him, he has a very, very acute sense of how to use it,” said Kagan, who is now the China Studies chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “And so I think that the idea that there’s going to be a trade where the president sort of sacrifices U.S. interests in Taiwan in order to get other things – I think it’s unlikely based on my own experience of how he operates.”

In the end, whether the island comes out of the Xi-Trump summit on a stronger or weaker footing will likely be judged by the leaders’ public statements.

After his last face-to-face encounter with Xi in October, Trump claimed that Xi hadn’t broached the issue and that Chinese officials “know the consequences” of taking military action against Taiwan.

“I think the best-case scenario Taiwan can hope for is that Taiwan is not talked about publicly or, at the very least, in a minimal way,” Nachman said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated in an interview broadcast Sunday night that the US-Israel conflict with Iran has achieved significant progress. However, he emphasized that the situation cannot be deemed resolved until Iran’s enriched uranium is removed from its soil.

During his first interview with an American network since the US and Israel initiated attacks on Iran on February 28, Netanyahu refrained from specifying the timing or responsible parties for this operation. Speaking to Major Garrett on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” he remarked, “You’re going to ask me these questions. I’m going to dodge them.”

Netanyahu, age 76, avoided discussing military strategies but mentioned a conversation with President Trump, saying, “The President has told me, ‘I want to go in there,’ and I believe it can be done physically. That’s not the issue. If there’s an agreement, and you go in to remove it, why not? That’s the best approach.”

The interview aired hours after Trump publicly rebuked Iran’s response to a 14-point peace framework offered by the US, writing on social media that it was “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.”

Tehran’s proposal made no mention of curbing its atomic ambitions, according to the official IRNA news agency, instead focusing on fully reopening the vital Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping before moving on to other contentious topics.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations nuclear watchdog, has said Iran has more than 970 pounds of uranium enriched up to 60% purity, a short technical step from weapons grade.

The majority of Iran’s highly enriched uranium is likely at its Isfahan nuclear complex about 275 miles south of Tehran, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi told The Associated Press last month. The facility was hit by US-Israeli airstrikes during the 12-day war last year and faced less intense attacks this year.

Elsewhere in the interview, Netanyahu denied a report by the New York Times that he insisted to Trump before the war began that the US and Israel could succeed in overthrowing the theocratic regime that has run Iran since 1979.

“We both agreed, you know, that there was both uncertainty and risk involved,” the PM said. “And I remember that we — I said, and he said — that the danger, there’s danger in action, in taking action. But there’s greater danger in not taking action.”

Asked by Garrett if he believed it is “possible” to effect regime change in Iran, Netanyahu said: “I think that you can’t predict when that happen. Is it possible? Yes. Is it guaranteed? No.”

Looking forward, Netanyahu claimed that he wanted to wean Israel off American military aid, which currently stands at $3.8 billion per year.

“I want to draw down to zero the American financial support, the financial component of the military cooperation that we have,” he said. “Because we receive– we receive $3.8 billion a year. And I– I think that it’s time that we weaned ourselves from the remaining– military support.

“I said, ‘Let’s start now and do it over the next decade, over the next ten years, but I want to start now. I don’t want to wait for the next Congress. I want to start now.’”

With Post wires