By DOUG FERGUSON AP Golf Writer
NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Not many players imagined Aronimink Golf Club and its wild, wavy greens would be so tough on scoring at the PGA Championship. Even fewer would have predicted Alex Smalley and Maverick McNealy to be atop the leaderboard Friday.
What to expect the rest of the weekend? Pretty much anything.
“Anyone who makes the cut, they’ve got to feel they have a shot in the tournament,” said Rory McIlroy, who found himself only five shots behind with 29 players – including Scottie Scheffler and six other major champions – ahead of him.
Two long days at Aronimink produced the highest 36-hole score to par to lead the PGA Championship in 14 years. The 15 players separated by two shots made it the biggest logjam going into a weekend at a major since 2002.
There’s more traffic at Aronimink than Philadelphia’s Schuylkill Expressway at rush hour.
The difference between first and worst among 82 players who made the cut was only eight shots, unusually tight for any tournament, much less a major.
Smalley, in only his fifth major championship, overcame three straight bogeys after making the turn and closed with a birdie for a 1-under 69. McNealy, who has never been among the top 25 in any major through 36 holes, fell back with a pair of late bogeys in his round of 67.
They were at 4-under 136, the highest 36-hole score to par for co-leaders in the PGA since 2012 at Kiawah Island.
Chasing them? It’s a long list.
Hideki Matsuyama, the 2021 Masters champion, and world No. 10 Chris Gotterup were among those one shot behind. They were followed by Scheffler, two-time PGA champion Justin Thomas and Cameron Young, who has won The Players Championship and at Doral the last two months.
Jon Rahm and Ludvig Aberg. Patrick Reed and Patrick Cantlay. And on it goes.
“A bunched leaderboard like this, I think it’s a sign of not a great setup,” McIlroy said after a 67. “It’s easy to make a ton of pars, hard to make birdies, and … it feels like bogey is the worst score you’re going to shoot on any one hole.”
It was tough to hit shots close. And then it was tough to get long putts close.
“This is the hardest set of pin locations that I’ve seen since I’ve been on tour,” Scheffler said after salvaging a 71. “And that includes U.S. Opens. That includes Oakmont.”
McNealy became the only player to reach 6 under at any point this week. He holed a bunker shot for eagle on the par-5 16th and remarked to his brother and caddie, Scout, that he was amazed and how well he was playing. And then he added three birdies over his next five holes until some mistakes caught up with him, as they did just about everyone.
“This is unfamiliar territory for me,” McNealy said.
Gotterup and Matsuyama had the toughest time by playing in the morning, when the temperatures barely cracked 50 degrees and the wind was ripping. Gotterup, who played college golf at just up the New Jersey Turnpike at Rutgers, played had enough Jersey toughness to handle it just fine, and he poured it on at the end with three straight birdies for a 65, the low round of his championship.
“Today would definitely be one of those days where I would be on the couch and I would be like, ‘How did he hit it there?’ and ‘How did he do this?’ And then you’re out there, and it just feels like it’s impossible,” Gotterup said.
Scheffler had a share of the 18-hole lead for the first time in a major, and then looked like anything but someone with consummate control of his game. He didn’t hit a fairway until his ninth hole (No. 18), and dropped three shots in four holes after driving into the thick grass.
He might have saved his round on the par-3 14th when he hit a beautiful lag putt from 80 feet for a two-putt par. That settled him, and he closed with an up-and-down birdie on the par-5 ninth.
Scheffler was joined by Thomas and Young at 2-under 138, and Aberg, the polished Swede who had four birdies in a five-hole stretch on the tougher back nine for a 66.
The cut was at 4-over 144. Among those headed home was Bryson DeChambeau who was 10 over at one point. He closed with three straight birdies, far too late for the two-time U.S. Open champion.
Garrick Higgo’s two-shot penalty for being late to the first tee on Thursday cost him a share of the lead on Thursday, and it cost him the cut on Friday. He shot 76 and missed by one.
McIlroy and Jordan Spieth (73) were tied for 30th, both with the Grand Slam on their minds. Spieth needs the PGA for the career slam, McIlroy as the Masters champion is the only one with a shot at the calendar slam, which has never been done.
But they still had a chance. So many of the pin positions were hard to reach – from the fairway and at times from the putting surface – that no one was safe.
McIlroy, who opened with a 74, played bogey-free with one goal in mind – stay in the mix and see what the weekend presents. He feels the PGA of America already used up several of the toughest pin positions. With slightly calmer conditions, the race could just be starting.
“Yes, it’s bunched,” he said. “But you get on a run with wedges on that front nine and you shoot 4, 5 under and all of a sudden you’re right in the thick of things.”
SCHEFFLER ON PIN PLACEMENTS
Scheffler had just made three bogeys on the first four holes of his second round at the PGA Championship when he stood on the tee at the par-3 14th hole and looked at a yellow flag that boggled his mind.
The pin was tucked all the way back and to the right of the 215-yard hole, behind a bunker. A cold wind was in his face and the hole was atop a ridge at the highest point of the green.
Three bogeys in four holes caused enough stress. And now this.
“That was one of the craziest pins that I’ve seen,” Scheffler said.
His tee shot found the middle of the green, well below the ridge, just under 80 feet away. He lagged that to 3 feet for a par. Given his start, it was as important a par as he made all day. “Extremely good,” Scheffler said.
He was unequivocal in his assessment of how he rated the difficulty of the pins: “This is the hardest set of pin locations that I’ve seen since I’ve been on tour, and that includes U.S. Opens.”
The PGA Championship hasn’t seen leading scores this high at the midway point since Kiawah Island in 2012. Players were three-putting roughly 6% of the holes on Friday.
The wind is difficult, sure. A relatively dry week makes it firm and fast and harder to control shots. But it’s the greens, undulating with knobs and valleys, and the locations of the pins that have been a real monster.
“There were some pins that didn’t even look like they were on the green,” Gotterup said after his 65, the low round of the tournament so far.
The 11th hole was a popular reference. The green already had everyone’s attention at the start of the week because of the severe false front that sent golf balls some 40 yards down the fairway.
On Friday, the hole was on a small shelf front and to the right. Players hit nothing more than a wedge. If anyone was closer than 8 feet – usually a stock shot with a wedge for the world’s best – consider it a happy accident.
“Impossible to get close,” Gotterup said.
Justin Thomas tried to lay back off the tee for a full sand wedge from 124 yards. That didn’t work out for him. He tried to be so exacting, but it came up short and in a bunker. The next one didn’t get on the green. He had to scramble for bogey.
“It’s not hard to hit it to 20 feet past the hole, but it’s really, really hard to hit it close,” Thomas said.
“So it just kind of speaks volumes to how this course can be throughout the entire day.”
It’s been that way for two days. It doesn’t take much for the PGA of America to set tough pins that will affect the scoring. Not all of them are brutal. The opening two holes Thursday were accessible. The pin on the par-5 ninth was on the easier side.
The par-3 eighth hole was tucked behind a bunker, but the tee was moved up 72 yards to play at only 173 yards on Friday. Gotterup hit a 5-wood on Thursday and made bogey. He 7-iron to 4 feet on Friday for birdie.
Scheffler had 140 yards on the second hole to a back right pin. He hit it to 30 feet and was pleased. He had the same yardage two holes later to a more accessible pin and went after it, the shot settling 5 feet below the hole for birdie.
It’s about picking the right shot for the right pin. And it changes by the day.
“I love hard tests of golf, but it’s also the hardest game in the world and we’re trying to make it harder, and there’s different ways you can do that,” Scheffler said. “You can do that on a golf course like this. I mean, I truly believe they could have the winning score be whatever they want it to be. It could be over par if they want it to be, just based purely upon pin locations.”
BLOCK PLANS TO BE BACK
Michael Block, a club pro from Arroyo Trabuco Golf Club in Mission Viejo, made bogeys on his last two holes to finish 5-over 75 in Friday’s second round.
After carding an even-par 70 in the first round, Block had a 36-hole total of 5-over 145 and was expected to miss the cut.
Block, who turns 50 next month, told SiriusXM that he isn’t done trying to qualify for the second major championship of the season. It was his eighth PGA Championship appearance after he tied for 10th in last month’s PGA Professional Championship at Bandon Dunes in Oregon.
“There’s no way on God’s green earth this is my last one,” Block said. “No chance. I will definitely qualify for one more, if not five more.”
Block was 1 under after making a birdie on the par-3 fifth on Friday, but he had two bogeys before making the turn and another one on the 11th. He made a double-bogey 5 on the par-3 14th.
After making a birdie on the par-5 16th, Block was still in position to make the cut. But he hit his tee shot on the par-3 17th into the water. On the 18th, he pulled his approach near the left grandstand and couldn’t get up and down from the rough.
“I tried to grind it out as much as I could, tried to keep it up,” Block told Sirius. “And then at the end, sort of just the wheels falling off. Like everything I did, I just kind of put in the wrong spot. The first day, I put it in the right spots.”
Block famously tied for 15th in the 2023 PGA Championship at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, New York. He made a hole-in-one on the par-3 15th while playing with Rory McIlroy in the final round.
Block will attempt to qualify for the Senior U.S. Open, which will be played July 9-12 at Scioto Country Club in Columbus, Ohio. He was given an exemption into the Scottish Senior Men’s Open on June 17-19.