Newtown Square, Pa. – The major championship is supposed to be difficult. The mental examination required to lift one of golf’s four awards is supposed to be grueling and demanding. The challenge for tournament organizers is that it is also supposed to be fair.
The question is: Where is the line? And we found that during the first two rounds of The 2026 PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club?
“I love the tough tests of golf, but it’s also the toughest game in the world, and we’re trying to make it tougher, and there’s different ways you can do it,” said world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler after his second round on Friday, pondering where that line lies. “You can do that on a golf course like this where, I mean, I really believe they can have the winning score any way they want. It could be over par if they want it to be, just based on pin locations. Is that the best test? Who knows. It’s a different test.”
Entering the week, there was talk that the best in the world would pulverize Donald Ross’ gem in suburban Philadelphia. Rory McIlroy bemoaned the “non-existent” thruster strategy. required to break down the course. The assumption was that low scores would be in the forecast.
Instead, Kerry Haigh and the PGA of America gave Scheffler, McIlroy and the rest of golf’s stars a heavy dose of devilish pin locations, many located on ridges or steps from heavy slopes. Friday morning also brought winds of up to 30 miles per hour, plus bracing greens. That combination caused several stars to walk away from the PGA Championship on Friday afternoon after being hit by an opponent expected to wilt. Even those lucky enough to book a time for the weekend left the course looking shell-shocked, having spent hours trying to decide how best to attack the almost unassailable best.
“Most of the pins today were, I mean, kind of absurd,” Scheffler said after posting 2-under through 36 holes. “They were just so far into the areas where we thought the pins would be, — like the one on 14 was probably the hardest pin I’ve seen in a long time, just because, I mean, there’s literally like a spine and they’re like, ‘Oh, we’re just going to put the pins right on top of it.’ And you say, ‘Okay, well, I’ll see what I can do.’ And only you know, just challenging.
“This is the hardest set of pin locations I’ve seen since I’ve been on tour, and that includes US Opens, that includes Oakmont.”
Shane Lowry shot a second-round 76 to fall to the cut at 4 over par. The 2019 Open champion laughed at how hard the pins were on the steeply sloped greens at Aronimink. Lowry made it clear: he wasn’t “whining” about a difficult setup. He has seen many tricky pegs before. But their ruthlessness in Aronimink was unusual. He called a left pin at no. 5 at “borderline” Augusta National, for example, but noted that Augusta normally follows that pin by placing the pin at no. 6 in the bowl. There is no break so far this week in Aronimink.
“The people in the stands have no idea how hard it is out there,” Lowry told several reporters with a laugh. “Like, I just got to the 10th hole today, and I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ By the way, it’s a really tough hole. It’s not like it’s a wedge hole. It’s a really tough hole, and with that pin position, it’s like, I don’t know. I don’t know. This is a great golf course. There’s no point in trying to cheat it.
“There wasn’t a needle in a bowl there today. It felt like every pin was on the hood of a car.”
Lowry rubbed his face and said he was just hoping he had time for the weekend to get two more cracks at the golden age design.
“I’ve never had that many 15-footers where I felt like I could hit the green, really,” Lowry said. “Every putt, every time I hit a good shot on the pin it was like in a crown, up and up, grain, grain. So tricky, with winds up to 20 miles an hour. I haven’t had that since Pinehurst. That’s what you feel when you’re at Pinehurst.”
The other came Patrick Reedwho shot 2 on Friday and will finish the weekend in a tie. It was a day in which Reed wasn’t at his best and his weaknesses were exposed by a demanding organization looking for control.
“The limits are brutal,” Reed told GOLF and the Philadelphia Inquirer after his round. “There’s none in the bowl. There’s only crowns here and they put every pin in a crown. Two of the pins are odd to say the least, but at the same time, it’s one of those you’d expect it to be like that.”
Reed bogeyed the 243-yard par-3 eighth hole in Round 1 and called it a “dumb hole.” But par-3s aside, Reed felt the first 36 holes were the highlight of the championship. The test is as it should be. If you hit a good shot, the reward is there. Well it will not be done.
“The pin locations are tough, but if you hit a quality iron shot, you have a chance to get it close,” Reed said.
That was the overwhelming sentiment from the players on Friday in Aronimink. Pin locations are on edge, yes. They are demanding. But if you make the required shot, you can still score. You just have to be precise. There is almost no room for error.
“I’m going to try to answer that properly. I don’t think it’s unfair,” said Chris Gotterup, who shot 5 under on Friday. “Fourteen today is probably aggressive, I’ll say. You’re hitting a 4-iron into a 10-yard circle, and if it doesn’t go there, it’s off the green, and if you hit it 40 yards left, you’ve got a very solid two-shot. (Robert MacIntyre) birdied my putt, and it’s probably not a good shot.”
Scheffler played his first two rounds with Justin Rose and Matthew Fitzpatrick. Scheffler said he asked both his caddy, Ted Scott, and Rose’s caddy, Mark Fulcher, if they had ever seen pins like this before. They both said only Shinnecock, which hosts the US Open next month, matters. even Last year’s US Open host, Oakmont, it’s not at this level because the slopes on those greens are different than how Ross designed them Aronimink.
“It’s different in a sense on this golf course because Oakmont, their greens are extremely heavy, but they’re extremely heavy in one direction,” Scheffler said. “Here, it’s like the green can slope all the way down (gestures right to left) and then we put the pins here (points at the top of the slope) and then there’s also a slope in this direction (gestures left to right). And like it’s not like, how do you say, natural to the slopes that are there. It’s just very difficult.
“It’s hard to get the ball close to the hole. It’s hard to hit holes, especially when you have big slopes and wind, and I think that’s why you see the scores so close.”
Reed noted a silver lining as he walked to the parking lot and prepared to charge up for a weekend in the affluent Philadelphia suburb of Newtown Square. Pin locations should, in theory, become easier.
“I feel like they knew which pins were going to be really, really weird and they got them out of the way when the greens were the softest,” Reed said.
For those who survived to make the weekend, that’s something to hope for.
;)
