Rory McIlroy says how he really feels about Aronimink as a golf course ahead of the PGA Championship

Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images

Rory McIlroy spoke to the media at Aronimink on Tuesday ahead of the start of the PGA Championship later this week.

McIlroy already has one major championship victory under his belt in 2026, following his triumph at The Masters last month.

However, he still has a real hunger to add to his major tally, and many are backing him to reign supreme at the PGA Championship this week.

The PGA Championship will be played at Aronimink in Pennsylvania this week – a golf course where McIlroy has only played one competitive tournament before.

Ahead of this week’s event, Rory McIlroy suggested he’d love the PGA Championship to change format to matchplay.

Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images

It is definitely true that something needs to be done to bring the PGA Championship back to life.

However, it will be business as usual this week at Aronimink.

Rory McIlroy shares how he feels about Aronimink ahead of the PGA Championship

McIlroy is far from an expert when it comes to his knowledge of Aronimink.

As mentioned before, he has only played one tournament there before in 2018, when he finished fifth.

He responded when asked by reporters to give his verdict on what he thinks of Aronimink as a golf course.

“I only got up here last night. I played two Fridays ago, I guess it was,“ McIlroy said.

*“*Yeah, we played here back in 2018 at the BMW. I don’t think the course necessarily played the way it will play this week. It was very wet that week. It looks like there’s going to be a little bit of rain Thursday night into Friday morning.

*“*For the most part, it should be a bit drier, which really brings out the character of the greens. The greens seem to be the big defense and the big talking point of the golf course.

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*“*Yeah, it reminds me, we played Philly Cricket Club last year for a PGA TOUR event. It reminds me a little of that, very wide playing corridors. Still got to get the ball on the fairway. The rough is sort of hit-and-miss, but you can get some bad lies. It’s all about — you know, they can really tuck the pins away with some of these slopes on the greens and just really being aware of that.

*“*I think from 2018 to then playing a couple weeks ago — and sort of, I don’t know if I’d forgotten or the course didn’t play this way, but if you get yourself above the hole or you start to short-side yourself, you can get yourself in some tricky spots.

“But keeping the ball below the hole — yeah, it’s a course where you can be super aggressive off the tee, and then there’s a little more strategy and a little more thought going into the greens.“

Rory McIlroy says Aronimink ‘will not test all aspects of your bag’

McIlroy suggested that there will not be too much strategy at Aronimink this week.

“I like the style of golf,“ he admitted.

*“*I like the bunkering. There’s a lot of bunkers. I think it provides quite a nice bit of variety with shorter par-4s, a couple of longer par-4s. The par-3s, there’s three pretty long ones and a shorter one.

*“*I think in this day and age I’m not sure if it’s going to test all aspects of your bag. There’s going to be a lot of — again, as I said, strategy off the tee is pretty nonexistent.

*“*It’s, basically, bash driver down there and then figure it out from there, which I think is a lot of these newer — newly renovated — I think about Oak Hill in 2023, here. When these traditional golf courses take a lot of trees out, it makes strategy not as much of a concern off the tee.

*“*But the greens are — as I said at the start, the greens are the main focus this week, and I think getting yourself in the right sections of the greens, making sure you leave yourself below the hole for the most part. That’s the key this week.

“Again, I’ve only played four competitive rounds here. I don’t know the place that well to give you a great answer on what I like about it, but Philadelphia’s a wonderful golfing city, a lot of great golf courses, and this is certainly one of them.“