‘Absurd’ PGA Championship setup draws criticism from Scottie Scheffler, Justin Thomas, others

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Aronimink pushed around the field on Thursday at the PGA Championship, and on Friday morning, knocked around everyone a second time for good measure. But on Day 2 of the season’s second major, the course had a co-conspirator: the PGA of America, which placed a diabolical set of pins that had the game’s best grousing

“This is the hardest set of pin locations that I've seen since I've been on Tour, and that includes U.S. Opens,” world No. 1 and defending PGA champion Scottie Scheffler said after a 1-over round that left him at -2, two strokes off the clubhouse lead. “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.”

Seven leaders tied at the top of the leaderboard at 3-under on Thursday. When Scheffler finished up on Friday, the lead stood at … 3-under.  Alex Smalley finished up shortly after Scheffler and pushed the lead to -4.

Professional golfers are a persnickety bunch. They’ll complain about anything — parking at the private clubs where they play for free, the quality of the food in the catered meals they receive, the single fan crunching chips in an otherwise silent gallery. But every so often, they do have a valid complaint, and tricky pin placement within devilish greens on blustery days would qualify.

“Most of the pins today were, I mean, kind of absurd,” Scheffler said. “There's literally just a spine [on the green] and they're like, ‘Oh, we'll just put the pin right on top of it*.’* And you're like, all right, well, I'll see what I can do.”

Chris Gotterup, who carded one of the day’s best rounds, a 65 that put him at -3 for the tournament, chose his words carefully. “I don't think it's unfair by any stretch of the imagination, but you're not going to get any 4 1/2 hour rounds out here,” he said as his fellow players plodded around at 5-plus-hour paces. “So, unfair, no, but tough to make birdies.”

Justin Thomas indicated that the wind speed and direction can combine to make certain pin placements unfair, among other considerations: “Every green speed has a percentage that a ball will not stay [on the green]. So I would like to think and hope that anybody who is setting a golf course is not going to put a pin in that percentage.” Thomas struggled early, with two bogeys in his first three holes, but settled down to post a -1 round to get to 2-under overall.