u/Outside-Evidence551

So round 1 is underway and i’ve been pretty deep into this course all week and honestly aronimink is just a legit fascinating setup that i don’t think gets talked about enough.

Quick context for people who aren’t super familiar with it, this is only the second major ever held here. The first was 1962. Gary Player won it. That’s how long it’s been. The only modern tour reference we have is the 2018 BMW championship, which is a genuinely tiny sample size for trying to figure out who fits.

The course itself is kind of wild

Par 70. Four par 3s. No water hazards anywhere on the property. The entire defense is the green complexes, which are these Donald Ross push-up greens with firm collection areas around them. Missing a green here doesn’t mean you’re in fluffy rough, you’re on a steep slope chipping back up to an elevated surface with basically no margin. It’s brutal in a really elegant way. HAVE to be able to SCRAMBLE.

The bomber narrative this week is mostly noise to me. Par 70 with two par 5s means there’s almost no runway for distance to matter. The long hitters can’t really leverage their length the way they do at Quail Hollow or Augusta. If your whole game is driver distance you’re probably in trouble here.

What actually matters at this course

Iron precision is legit the whole thing. Specifically the 175-200 yard range because of how the par 3s set up and where approach distances cluster from the fairways. Fitzpatrick ranks 2nd in the field in GIR from that distance band at 88.7%, Morikawa is 4th at 88.6%, Fleetwood is 6th at 88.3%. That’s not a coincidence.

Scrambling is also more important here than at almost any other course on tour because the design literally creates short game situations. The push-up greens funnel balls into firm collection areas constantly. If you can’t scramble from firm lies you’re going to bleed bogeys all week.

Storylines worth watching today

Rory’s second start since winning the Masters is the obvious one. He played Aronimink in practice this spring and said the greens played “more severe” than he remembered from 2018. His 2018 BMW result was legitimately strong (+3.37 true SG, T5) and he had a second place at Pinehurst in 2024 which is the closest comparable Donald Ross design. The ARG numbers this year are the question mark.

Fitzpatrick is the most interesting one to me just from a pure course fit standpoint. This course was kind of built for the way he plays, elite iron precision, strong scrambler, doesn’t need to overpower anything. He won the 2022 US Open at Brookline which isn’t a direct comp but shows he handles demanding iron setups in majors.

Fleetwood is worth watching too. His 2018 Aronimink result was solid (T8, +2.87 true SG) and his ARG numbers this year are legitimately elite. Kind of flying under the radar.

Conditions today

Overnight rain softened the course going into round 1 so the greens are more receptive than they’ll be by Sunday. That’s actually meaningful here because the standard Aronimink setup rewards precise iron play even more when the greens firm up. The guys who score well today might be doing so on slightly easier conditions than what they’ll face Saturday and Sunday. Worth keeping in mind when you’re reading the leaderboard tonight. 68 degrees, winds 8-14 mph from the northwest with gusts around 22. Not a calming day but not brutal either.

The thing i’ll be watching most

How the par 3s play. Four of them at a par 70 is a genuinely unusual ratio for a major and whoever handles those holes across 72 will have a massive advantage. Par 3 scoring doesn’t get nearly enough attention in major coverage.

Who are you guys watching today?​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Don’t do this often but here’s our top 30 for the PGA Championship

Posting this early because the field and lines are worth talking through before money moves Thursday. Running the full model later this week so official picks will be posted before first tee. This is just the early look.

Current Board (BetMGM/FanDuel)
Scottie Scheffler +400-440
Rory McIlroy +700-750
Cameron Young +1300-1400
Jon Rahm +1300
Xander Schauffele +1600
Tommy Fleetwood +2000-2500
Bryson DeChambeau +2000
Matt Fitzpatrick +2000
Ludvig Åberg +2500

The Course
Aronimink is a Donald Ross Par 70 just outside Philadelphia. Around 7,300 yards, no water, push-up greens with serious fall-offs. The greens are the entire defense so approach precision and short game are what matter most. Distance is less of a factor than Quail Hollow last year, only two Par 5s. Course hasn’t hosted a PGA Championship since 1962 so modern history is basically nonexistent. The 2018 BMW Championship is the only real data we have to work with.

Weather
Legit concern heading in after a rough northeast winter. PGA of America said this week the course is in great shape but admitted the growing season got off to a late start. Keep an eye on the forecast before Thursday. Soft conditions playing long will shift some of these prices.

What I Am Looking At

Scheffler at +400-440 is hard to argue with. Second at Augusta, second at Harbour Town, and his iron game is clearly peaking at the right time. He was at +1.67 SG: Approach per round at the Masters. Aronimink rewards exactly what he is doing right now

McIlroy at +700-750 feels about right. Defending Masters champion, in contention at the Truist this week, major pedigree is legit. That said he finished T47 at Quail Hollow last year as a heavy favorite on a course he had won on multiple times. Good price, not a lock.

Cameron Young at +1300-1400 is the one I keep coming back to. Two wins in 2026 including The Players, T3 at Augusta, elite iron numbers, and he already won on a Donald Ross design at the 2025 Wyndham. If you want a mid-range value that is not just picking between the two big names, Young fits this venue better than his price suggests.

DeChambeau at +2000 is interesting on paper. His PGA Championship history is legit, T2, second, T4 in recent years. But he missed the cut at Augusta and pulled out in Mexico City with wrist issues. Also Aronimink has one of the higher bunker counts at any major venue which is not great for his game.

Fleetwood at +2000-2500 might be the most underpriced name on the board if course fit matters to you. Solid all around ball striker, four top tens this season, still looking for his first major. The price feels a little generous for where his game actually is right now.

Will post the full model output and official picks card later this week before Thursday. What are you all seeing on the board that looks off so far? Anyone already in on anything before the field locks after the Truist?​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Quail Hollow might be the most legit non-major venue on the entire PGA Tour schedule. The 2025 PGA Championship played here, Scheffler won by five, and the course didn’t feel like it gave him an inch. Seven holes with water. Six par 4s between 450 and 500 yards. Sixty-one bunkers. Then the Green Mile to close it out, three straight water par 4s where tournaments go to die.

The stat that actually wins here is tee to green, but not in the vague “he’s a good ball striker” way people say it. It’s specifically approach play from 175-200 yards. That’s where Quail Hollow’s par 4s funnel most approaches, and if you’re not hitting greens from that band at a high rate, the course exposes it fast. Every recent winner ranked top-12 in SG: Approach for the week. Every one.

Distance is a baseline requirement, not an edge. Top-50 in driving distance is basically the floor to even be in the conversation outright. A short accurate hitter is giving up strokes on the par 5s before they even get to the Green Mile.

Putting matters less than you’d think. Bermuda greens reward lag putting over hot birdie conversion, so the putter becoming a differentiator is more of a Sunday back-nine thing when the greens are running 12-13 on the stimp and the Green Mile is deciding who wins.

A few names I think are genuinely interesting this week:

Cameron Young is the obvious one coming off his six-shot win at Doral. His GIR percentage from 175-200 yards is 65.1%, which leads basically everyone in this field who fits the course. Elite off the tee. The course history is thin but the current-year profile is hard to argue with.

Si Woo Kim at 63.1% from that same distance band. This is the name I’d guess most people aren’t spending much time on. Approach numbers are legitimately good this season. Not sure what the odds look like for him but worth a look.

Xander Schauffele has two solo seconds at Quail Hollow and 22 rounds of positive course history. His current-year numbers pass every filter you’d apply to this venue. The history matters here more than at most courses, Data Golf has actually published on how predictive it is specifically at Quail Hollow.
J.J. Spaun is interesting as a live-under type. +1.35 strokes per round vs expectation over 12 rounds at this course. That’s not small. Approach numbers have been solid this year.

Ludvig Aberg is the trickiest one to read. The ball-striking profile is elite. But he’s only got two rounds of history here, and at a course where history carries meaningful predictive weight, that’s a real question mark.

Two huge absences shaping the whole week: Scheffler is skipping to prep for Aronimink and the PGA Championship, which makes sense but still reshuffles the top of the board. Morikawa withdrew Monday, same back issue from The Players. He was quietly having one of the best approach-play seasons on tour before this and would’ve fit Quail Hollow well.

Weather is relatively benign Thursday and Friday. Saturday has 12-18 mph winds with gusts and some afternoon rain possible. Sunday clears out. The course gets harder as the week goes on just from the greens speeding up, so ball striking picks should hold through three rounds and then Sunday becomes a different test.

The Rory question is the elephant in the room. Four wins here, +0.72 strokes per round vs expectation across 54 rounds at the venue, Masters champion, first start since. The history is legitimate. His current-year T2G and approach numbers though don’t put him in the top tier of this field when you actually look at it. The market is doing a lot of work on narrative.

So who yall got this week? Anyone think the field is soft enough without Scheffler that a guy like Spaun or Kim actually gets into contention? Can Fitzy or Cam keep their respective win streaks alive?