Scottie Scheffler has seen plenty of difficult setups during his time on the PGA Tour.
But even the world’s top-ranked golfer was taken aback by what he saw through two rounds at Aronimink Golf Club during the PGA Championship.
After shooting 1-over par to sit at 2 under heading into Saturday’s play, Scheffler ripped the pin locations after his round Friday, comparing them to some of the toughest courses in professional golf.
“Most of the pins today were kind of absurd,” Scheffler said during his post-round news conference. “I was a bit surprised how far they pushed a lot of these pin locations.”
“This is the hardest set of pin locations that I’ve seen since I’ve been on Tour, and that includes U.S. Opens, that includes Oakmont,” Scheffler continued. “It’s difficult to get the ball close to the hole. It’s difficult to hole putts, especially when you have big slopes and wind, and I think that’s why you see the scores so close to par.”
Scheffler spoke specifically about the hole location on the 14th, a 215-yard par-3, which he parred on Friday.
“That was one of the craziest pins I’ve seen,” Scheffler said “They put the pin on like this microphone, like it was just like a high point. I hadn’t seen anything like it.”
Aronimink has played much tougher than most assumed heading into the tournament.
After the first round, seven players, including Scheffler, were tied atop the leaderboard at just 3-under.
The field struggled, in particular, on the greens, with three-putts becoming a common theme as players tried to navigate severe slopes and tucked-away hole locations.
Scheffler indicated that he would’ve liked Aronimink to challenge players in ways that didn’t rely quite so heavily on extreme pin placements.
“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. “You can do that on a golf course like this. I mean, 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. Is that the best test? Who knows. It’s a different test.”
Scheffler sits three strokes back of the leader, 21-year-old Aldrich Potgieter, who finished Friday’s round at 5-under for the tournament, as of this writing.
