NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. (AP) — Scottie 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 at Aronimink 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.
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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,” Chris Gotterup said after his 65, the low round of the championship.
