MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Rory McIlroy might not have endeared himself to the Royal Melbourne Golf Club membership on Wednesday when he gave his impression of the famed sandbelt course — he says it's not the best in Melbourne.
McIlroy will tee off in the opening round of the Australian Open on Thursday with Adam Scott, whom he beat for the title in 2013, and another Australian drawcard Min Woo Lee.
But McIlroy, who played five holes at five different Melbourne courses on Monday, wasn’t overly enthusiastic about Royal Melbourne, rating nearby Kingston Heath above it.
Royal Melbourne has hosted the Presidents Cup three times but Kingston Heath will be the venue in 2028 for the International vs. the United States team event. And Kingston Heath will also host the Australian Open next year, which McIlroy has already committed to play.
“I don’t want the membership to take this badly but it’s probably not the best course in Melbourne,” said McIlroy, who won the Masters this year to become just the sixth man to achieve the career grand slam.
He did at least add that he considered the course among the top 10 in the world and said it possibly played “funky” on Wednesday due to the northerly wind.
“I didn’t anticipate how many blind tee shots there was going to be, and it takes a little bit to figure out. It’s certainly not straightforward. I think as well, it probably plays better in the southerly wind rather than a northerly wind ... it’s probably not a fair reflection on the golf course playing it in this wind."
He also added his approval of the Australian Open returning to a stand-alone format, breaking ties with the Women's Australian Open which had been held concurrently with the men's event the past three years.
“This tournament in particular because of the history, because of the tradition, deserves to be a stand-alone tournament, a week on its own,” McIlroy said.
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FILE - Adam Scott, of Australia, tees off on the ninth hole during the final round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Oakmont Country Club, June 15, 2025, in Oakmont, Pa. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)
HONG KONG (AP) — The father of a U.S.-based activist wanted by Hong Kong authorities was convicted Wednesday for attempting to deal with his daughter's financial assets in the city, in the first court case of its kind brought under a homegrown national security law.
Kwok Yin-sang's daughter Anna is the executive director of the Washington-based Hong Kong Democracy Council. Authorities in 2023 offered 1 million Hong Kong dollars (about $127,900) for information leading to her arrest and later banned anyone from handling any funds for her — widely seen as part of a yearslong crackdown on challenges against Beijing's rule following the massive, anti-government protests in 2019.
Kwok, 69, was arrested in April 2025 under the security law, locally known as Article 23 legislation, enacted a year before. He was accused of having attempted to obtain funds from an insurance policy under his daughter's name. He pleaded not guilty.
Acting principal magistrate Cheng Lim-chi found him guilty on Wednesday, saying Kwok must have known his daughter was an absconder and he was attempting to handle her assets.
According to previous hearings, Kwok bought the insurance policy for Anna when she was a toddler and she gained control of it when she reached 18 years old. The father in 2025 wanted to cancel the policy and get funds from it, the court heard.
Kwok’s lawyer, Steven Kwan, pleaded for a lesser sentence for his client, saying there was no evidence to show his client was trying to get the money to send to his daughter. He suggested the judge consider a 14-day prison term.
While the maximum sentence for his charge is seven years of imprisonment, but his case was heard at the magistrates’ courts, which normally hands down a maximum sentence of two years.
His sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 26.
Authorities have accused Anna Kwok of demanding for foreign sanctions, blockade and engaging in other hostile activities against China and Hong Kong through meeting foreign politicians and government officials.
“Today, my father was convicted simply for being my father,” said the younger Kwok on X. “This is transnational repression.”
She said his charge was founded on “incoherent fiction” and she had not received or sought funds from her father or anyone in Hong Kong. She added that the moves from the city's government will not discourage her from carrying on her activism.
Amnesty International Hong Kong Overseas spokesperson Joey Siu said the conviction was apparently politically motivated.
“It also sets a dangerous precedent, designed to terrify and silence others who continue to speak out about Hong Kong issues from overseas,” she said in a statement, calling for Kwok's release.
The police’s bounties targeting overseas-based Hong Kong activists, including Siu and pro-democracy former lawmakers Nathan Law and Ted Hui, have drawn criticism from the U.S. and the U.K. governments.
In 2025, Washington sanctioned six Chinese and Hong Kong officials who it alleged were involved in “transnational repression” and acts that threaten to further erode the city’s autonomy. It said Beijing and Hong Kong officials have used Hong Kong's national security laws extraterritorially to intimidate, silence and harass some activists who were forced to flee overseas.
Weeks after that, China said it would sanction U.S. officials, lawmakers and leaders of nongovernmental organizations who it said have “performed poorly” on Hong Kong issues.
After Beijing imposed a 2020 national security law on the city, many leading activists were arrested or silenced. Others fled abroad and continued their advocacy for Hong Kong, a British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Both China and Hong Kong governments insist the security laws were crucial for the city's stability.
This story was corrected in an earlier version to reflect that Kwok Yin-sang was arrested in April 2025, not May.
Anna Kwok, second right, speaks to Sen. Jeff Merkley at an event outside of the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C., on March 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Didi Tang)
Anna Kwok speaks during an event commemorating China's June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy movement in Washington D.C., on June 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Didi Tang)
