Rory rips PGA Championship course setup and he's not alone

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. – Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee said it best: “It ain’t a major until you’ve got some bitching, and we’ve got some bitching now.”

Some moaning and whining too.

Ireland’s Shane Lowry had the line of the day, telling The Irish Times, “I felt like every pin was on the bonnet of a car.”

Aronimink Golf Club and its pesky crowned Donald Ross greens (restored by Gil Hanse) are full of tilt, shoulders and subtle movements that keep players guessing.

Rory McIlroy reacts on the 15th hole during the second round of the 2026 PGA Championship.

It didn’t help the pros that it was another bitter cold morning and the wind played havoc with anything less than a precise shot. Scottie Scheffler bogeyed three of the first four holes. Lowry cold-topped, semi-shanked one into a pond. A case of three putts spread faster than the hantavirus. Rory McIlroy, who played in warmer and calmer conditions in the afternoon, shot a bogey-free 67 and continued to take shots at the course.

“I think it's a sign of not a great setup, I think when it's as bunched as it is, because it hasn't really enabled anyone to separate themselves,” he said. “It's like, you know, it's easy to make a ton of pars, hard to make birdies, and not that it's hard to make bogey, but it feels like bogey's the worst score you're going to shoot on any one hole.”

Bogeys were plentiful on Friday, as the course played to a scoring average of 72.609, and adding to the tough conditions was a setup aimed at protecting par.

“Some of the pin positions are just, like honestly (so difficult). I feel like we’re pretty good at looking at a course and finding out where the pins are going to be and if my coach threw down the plate on a few of those I would have laughed at him,” ranted Lowry. “I know a couple of guys are shooting good scores or whatever, but I’ve never had so many 15-footers  that I felt like I could putt off the green. Everyone else will say, ‘Oh, yeah, of course, you’re going to moan because you shot 76,’ but it’s very hard.”

He wasn’t alone in this observation. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler called the pins "kind of absurd," and highlighted a questionable hole location at the par-3 14th, which played as the toughest hole in the second round.