PGA Championship 2026: Scottie Scheffler gets off to a happy start on the course and with Philly's infamous fans

There was one thing that Scottie Scheffler did not prepare for when he headed into the first round of the PGA Championship on Thursday outside of Philadelphia.

Among a sizeable and boisterous crowd at Aronimink Golf Club, the World No. 1 said he got chirped at fairly regularly for the native Texan’s love of the Cowboys. Philly's hatred for its NFC East rivals is visceral, and that Scheffler hadn't thought there'd be some good-natured needling would be like him not expected to see his jail mugshot on T-shirts two years ago at Valhalla.

These are fans, after all, infamous for cheering for the “Broad Street Bullies” and throwing snowballs at Santa Claus. At one point in a practice round this week, a guy yelled from the stands, "Dallas sucks, Scottie!" and added with a laugh, "We're gonna smash you on Thanksgiving!"

Scheffler, thank goodness, was savvy enough to laugh it off.

“I got quite a kick out of it,” he said. “The fans were quite funny today.

“Philly is definitely a sports town,” he added. “I said it a little in the beginning, I haven't played much golf here and haven't spent much time in the city, and I certainly won't this week with it being a golf tournament.

“… The crowd had some great energy today. There were some really cool spots on the golf course where you can kind of get punch-bowl type of feel and the crowd can get loud.”

Philly fans appreciate an extraordinary athlete when they see one, and Scheffler gave them plenty of reasons to cheer for him. He strung together four birdies in a six-hole stretch in the middle of the round and hung on amid cold and windy afternoon conditions to shoot three-under-par 67.

Not only did the effort put to rest the chatter about Scheffler’s Thursday foibles this year, but it also placed him in the lead with six other players on a tightly bunched leaderboard, with 33 players two shots or closer to the lead. Scheffler was told that this is the first time that he has ever held a solo or co-lead in a major championship after the first day—despite the fact he’s won five already.

He chuckled at the stat, saying, “Yeah, I think the emphasis would be ‘share of the lead,’” Scheffler said. “... It's a really tight leaderboard. At this moment, it's anybody's tournament.”

Scheffler, 29, is certainly the valedictorian among his current class of seven front-runners, with only 41-year-old German Martin Kaymer having won a major title (he has two—2010 PGA, 2014 U.S. Open).

There are more statistics that will prove that Scheffler should be satisfied and relieved about his first-round performance. His lone victory this year came in his first start, when he opened with a 63 in The American Express and went on to shoot 27 under. Since then, he has three top-five finishes and in only one of those did he start with a round in the 60s. Most notably, in the Masters, Scheffler opened 70-74 and lost to Rory McIlroy by one shot. For the season, Scheffler ranks 77th in first-round scoring average (70.33), and then is a completely different player, being seventh (68.33), first (67.22) and first (67.22) in the other three rounds, respectively.