Aronimink: Real Winner of the Week

When people look back at the 2026 PGA Championship, no one will care that Aaron Rai won. What may be thought about a bit more is how bunched the leaderboard was throughout the tournament. But what people will remember is how Aronomink, the Donald Ross course, showed out, making it the real winner of the week.

Coming into the week, the players talked about what they faced at the 2018 BMW Championship – the FedEx Cup playoff event held at the club. Golf journalist Dan Rapaport, before the tournament began, tweeted: “It's a lovely golf course. Looks like a ton of fun to play. I think it's going to get annihilated by the best players in the world.” Before Friday afternoon, he responded to his own post with: “Hard to have been more wrong.” 

Dan’s original thoughts, and those of many in the golf world, were well off the mark; there were talks that the winner would finish somewhere between 15 and 20 under par. But on Friday morning, golf analyst Jason Sobel remarked, “They’re playing a PGA Championship on a U.S. Open setup with Open Championship conditions.” The course sent home some of the game’s biggest early, including Tommy Fleetwood and Bryson DeChambeau. 

It did not necessarily play super long, just under 7,400 yards. Compare that to last year's tournament and the Masters, which both play roughly 7,600 yards. There were drivable and short par-4s which rewarded great shots, and penalized poor ones. The par-5s were gettable, but tough at the same time. In order to do anything, drives needed to be in the fairway. 

And then there were the greens. They gave Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler, Ludvig Aberg, Jon Rahm, you name it, the toughest time of them all. Miss the green: the rough was thick. Hit the green in the wrong spot: good luck making birdie. Hit the right level: best of luck with your putt. Aronomink was tough. The changes made by Gil Hanse eight years ago did not take away from the toughness of the course. 

So, the 2026 PGA Champion: Aronimink Golf Club.