The PGA Championship is winning the battle against the best golfers in the world

Scottie Scheffler said the PGA Championship greens are among the toughest he's ever seen. Carl Recine / Getty Images Share article1NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — You can see a lot from the hillside between Aronimink Golf Club’s 11th green and 12th tee box. A whole expanse. For this week’s PGA Championship, the course’s fairways and greens are lined by fans and concessions and grandstands, but you can still see clear across much of the property. I was there midday Friday with an old friend, one who’s spent much of the last 25 years caddying at Aronimink. He can’t be named here without risking his loops at the club, but trust that his local knowledge includes which Delaware County bartenders reliably tally a light check and how to navigate every inch of Aronimink. He remembers when trees crowded every hole on this course. He remembers when every one of those trees came down during the club’s mass renovation. He remembers previous pro events held here — PGA Tour events in 2010, 2011 and 2018, and the 2020 Women’s PGA Championship. What he does not remember is what he saw on Friday. “Dude, the pin on 6,” he said, “I have never seen that.” The sixth green at Aronimink measures roughly 90 feet wide. This unicorn cup? It was cut maybe 6 feet off the left edge. “And that,” he continued, pointing way out in the distance to the 14th green, “look how far back they put that pin on 14.” Yes, from where we were standing, the flagstick on 14 appeared to be painted onto the front of the grandstand behind the green. The cup not only occupied one of the deepest areas on the 215-yard par-3, but also sat atop a spine bisecting the green. Scottie Scheffler had another: “Absurd.” Chris Gotterup offered yet another: “Aggressive.” Here’s one more to consider: revealing. The pins at Aronimink this week, selected and cut by the PGA of America, and currently subject to endless conversations in the golf ecosystem, are not targets. They are signposts, ones pointing both to what it takes for golf’s classic courses to stand a chance against hulking athletes and space-aged equipment, and to the choices faced by the game’s governing bodies when walking the invisible line between what’s too easy, what’s too hard, and how open to leave oneself to criticism. Much was made about how this week might play out just outside Philadelphia. Predictions were made of a winning score ballooning to 20 under or better. Rory McIlroy made it sound like poor Aronimink might as well be fitted for a windmill. “In this day and age, I’m not sure if it’s going to test all aspects of your bag,” he said Tuesday. “Strategy off the tee is pretty nonexistent. It’s basically bash driver down there and then figure it out from there.” McIlroy wasn’t wrong. This is modern golf. Hit it far. Hit it close. Make putts. At this point, every golf course feels like a hockey team on a perpetual penalty kill. This is nothing new. But championship golf still needs to be championship caliber. And with the game’s scales tipped so far in one direction — toward players, toward equipment — the only answer for the course can be found in the greens; specifically, the smallest nooks and most inconvenient crannies of those surfaces. The game has been trending this way for years. Shinnecock Hills infamously turned into a comedy opera in 2018 and, as host of this summer’s U.S. Open, will have its greens and pin locations under a microscope again. The USGA is on a constant knife-edge in its efforts to create the sport’s toughest test without “losing the greens.” The PGA Championship, run by the PGA of America, hasn’t quite existed in such a space — a result of its venues and setup decisions. Aronimink measures well under 7,400 yards — short, in comparison to its peers. The Cadillac Championship at Trump Doral two weeks ago stretched out to well over 7,700 yards. Augusta National currently measures 7,565 yards. Muirfield Village, host of the Memorial Tournament in two weeks, is 7,573. What Aronimink has, though, is big, hard, fast greens. Eighteen Wawa parking lots. Each cascades up and down, right and left, pouring in every direction into bunkers and runoffs. This is where, when it came to deciding what this PGA Championship was going to be, the decisions really resided. Where on the scale would an organization like the PGA want to put its weight? In theory, the harder the pins, the tougher the test; the tougher the test, the better the tournament. After two days, it’s clear what choices were made. “I love hard tests of golf, but it’s also the hardest game in the world, and we’re trying to make it harder, and there’s different ways you can do that,” Scheffler said Friday, after following an opening-round 3-under 67 with a second-round 71, and sitting two shots behind co-leaders Alex Smalley and Maverick McNealy. “You can do that on a golf course like this. I truly believe they could have the winning score be whatever they want it to be. It could be over par if they want it to be, just based purely upon pin locations.” Kerry Haigh, the PGA of America’s chief championships officer, ultimately makes such decisions. At Aronimink, he did not opt for timidity. On Wednesday night, when Thursday’s pin locations were released, the local caddie barn began placing $100 wagers on players putting off certain greens. Then the wind came into play, blowing a steady 20-plus mph through most of Thursday and Friday. The result is a tournament that’s becoming a stress test. Per Elias, this year marks just the fourth PGA Championship in the last 50 years with only one round of 4 under par or lower through 36 holes. “Is that the best test?” Scheffler asked. “Who knows? It’s a different test.” The larger question now is what the PGA does next. Ease up? Stand pat? Turn the screws? Fifteen players are within two shots of the lead heading into Saturday. The PGA’s setup has produced a 36-hole leaderboard with two relative unknowns on top, followed by Scheffler, Justin Thomas, Cameron Young, Ludvig Åberg, Jon Rahm, Jason Day and Patrick Cantlay all lurking, and Tommy Fleetwood, Viktor Hovland, Tyrrell Hatton and Bryson DeChambeau all going home. McIlroy, the one who threw shade at the course? He’s tied for 30th. There is obviously a larger lesson lurking here, one about needing to trick out courses to combat unending progress, but no one has any time for that. There’s a major champion to be crowned. And bets to be settled. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms