For those who enjoy the sight of elite golfers pummelled into a state of humility, or indeed humiliation, then this suburb of Philadelphia has performed a service to the greater good. Not that many saw it coming.
Barely three days have passed since Rory McIlroy caused a little consternation by bemoaning the lack of strategy needed for a successful loop at Aronimink Golf Club. A few of his colleagues had more to say on the lack of trees.
Their collective vibe? This course was ripe for a bit of a pounding. But how wrong they were, which was the prime takeaway midway through the second round of the PGA Championship.
Images of the carnage were easy to find among the early starters – Justin Rose ballooned a drive behind the bins on the 13th hole in a round of 73, Matt Fitzpatrick four-putted on the 14th in his 72 and Shane Lowry flat-out shanked his tee shot on the par-three 17th into a lake like a 25-handicapper. He signed for 76 and dwindled from contention to four over for the tournament.
He had a face like thunder, but then again, many did. Look to Justin Thomas. A two-time winner of this tournament, he shot his second 69 to sit two under but was put on the clock and argued with the officials. To be fair to Thomas, no one was navigating this challenge at speed – the rounds are taking close to five and a half hours, which borders on absurd, but such are the difficulties.
The great Scottie Scheffler? He started in a share of the lead on the 10th and by the time he had completed four holes he was three bogeys deep into a slog. He recovered to card a 71 that left him two under before breaking character by criticising the ‘hardest set of pin locations that I’ve seen since I’ve been on tour’.
Scottie Scheffler carded a one-over 71 on the second day of the PGA Championship
Irishman Shane Lowry flat-out shanked his tee shot on the par-three 17th into a lake
Justin Rose also struggled at Aronimink, finishing with a second-round score of three-over
In consideration of how many have been placed near the peaks of extreme slopes, particularly on the par-three 14th hole that tripped up Fitzpatrick, there is a question to be asked about the fairness of the set-up. Scheffler went further than that, saying: ‘Most of the pins today were, I mean, kind of absurd. The one on 14 was probably the hardest pin that I’ve seen in a long time just because there’s literally a spine and they’re like, “Oh, we’ll just put the pin right on top of it”.’
This was that kind of day. And this has been that kind of course, fusing the devilment of US Open-style rough with Open Championship winds and fiendish, huge greens that are yielding substantially more three-putts than Augusta National. Some distinctly unkind and possibly unfair pin placements have fed into the latter.
Doubtless, the early wave on Friday had the tough end of the draw. The wind was gusting as strong as 30mph, which allied to the speed of those sloped putting surfaces made for a brutal test, meaning the 65 carded by Chris Gotterup in the worst of the conditions was exceptional. Similar credit goes to former Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama, who joined the American on three under par after a 67. Alex Smalley’s 69 set the initial clubhouse lead on four under.
The expectation was that the later starters, including McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau, would have a marginally more favourable environment to make up the ground they lost in the first round.
But for those on the course in the morning and early afternoon, all eyes were trained squarely on dealing with their own challenges. For Scheffler, they were many and varied.
The world No 1 had been imperious in shooting an opening 67 – he missed only one fairway all day and was a killer on the greens. But his second lap was not nearly so functional. It took him eight holes after starting on the back nine – the tougher half – to find a birdie on the 17th, by which point he had already coughed up a hat-trick of bogeys.
Like McIlroy a day earlier, when the Northern Irishman described his performance as ‘s***’, Scheffler couldn’t hit a fairway, missing each of the first six. But we often make a play of Scheffler’s greater resistance to mood swings and typically he battled back, outweighing a bogey on the sixth hole of his inward half with birdies on the fourth and ninth. At two under par, he had lost a stroke to his first-round score but had emerged from harsh weather in strong shape.
For a time, Patrick Reed seemed likely to join him. A five-footer on the fourth carried the divisive American to three under, matching the 18-hole lead held by Scheffler and six others, but a bogey on the sixth preceded a run of eight straight pars.
It was at the 15th where he felt the teeth of this course. Reed had missed the green by barely two yards with his approach, but the ball buried in the dense rough and even his short-game mastery couldn’t leave a par putt inside 25 feet. That led to a bogey and a second followed at 16, with the round of 72 dragging Reed back to level par.
