The 2026 PGA Championship is off and running from Aronimink Golf Club outside of Philadelphia. The preamble days to the actual tournament rounds can become interminable at these majors, but the press conferences often yield a few insightful, amusing, and maybe even legendary comments. It was about this time last year that we had no idea who Don Rea really was, and then he rumbled into our lives. 

As some of the notable names in the field, and eventually the PGA of America brass, take the dais, we’ll track some of the more interesting tidbits here as a quick cheat sheet to anything happening in Philly before the shots start to count on Thursday.

Tuesday, May 12

On golf course setup and strategy

Rory McIlroy: “It should be a bit drier, which really brings out the character of the greens. The greens seem to be the big defense and the big talking point of the golf course…it's a course where you can be super aggressive off the tee, and then there's a little more strategy and a little more thought going into the greens.

“Strategy off the tee is pretty nonexistent. It's, basically, bash driver down there and then figure it out from there, which I think is a lot of these newer – newly renovated – I think about Oak Hill in 2023, here. When these traditional golf courses take a lot of trees out, it makes strategy not as much of a concern off the tee.”

Joseph LaMagna: Off the tee, there isn’t much to dissuade professional golfers from ripping driver repeatedly. There aren’t many places to find penalty hazards, and many of the fairway bunkers are easy for most pro golfers to carry. The greens at Aronimink, however, are brilliant and wild. Dry conditions are essential for the course to defend itself, as McIlroy illuminates. 

Garrett Morrison: I wish McIlroy would do better on the tree-removal issue. He’s a sharp guy; he’s perfectly capable of understanding that there are many reasons a club might take out trees, and that each course is different. At Aronimink, a bunch of red oaks suffered a blight about 15 years ago. Should the club add some back? Perhaps, for aesthetic purposes. But I’m not sure that would change the way the pros play the course. Bottom line: if you need to plant trees in the line of play on a 100-year-old Donald Ross* course in order to generate strategy off the tee, your fundamental problem isn’t red oak wilt. It’s hitting distances. And I don’t think Rory would even disagree with that. I’d just like to hear him say it when he talks about trees and strategy.

(*Here’s Donald Ross on the issue: “As beautiful as trees are, we must not lose sight of the fact that there is a limited place for them in golf.”)

Jon Rahm: “I see a lot of golf courses coming in saying, look, 100 years ago, this golf course was like this, there were no trees. I'm like, well, in the back of my mind, they planted those trees with the future vision of having those trees in play, and now you're taking them all out.

“While I see both points, I don't know which one is more valid than the next. I do believe a lot of it has to do with course conditions. Some of these big oak trees out here in the wintertime when the leaves are falling and might get a little bit more rain or snow, taking some out can help with wind flow and overall conditions of the course. I think the course setup that was expected in the '30s, '40s, and '50s, compared to what we have right now with how tight the grass is and how meticulous everything probably has something to do with it as well. I think golf has evolved, and for the overall health of the course, they might need to take those trees out…

“I think with advances in the study of the game and biomechanics and the technology of the drivers and the golf ball, you're going to have a lot of players that hit it very far be very accurate, and it's going to be very difficult to lay back to hit fairways and have the same scoring opportunities even though you're on the fairway with a 5-iron, whereas a player like Rory with a wedge out of the rough is still going to be pretty capable. So it's also the name of the game nowadays.” 

Joseph LaMagna: A long quote that felt worthy of publishing nearly in full. Rahm offers a more nuanced take than McIlroy and addresses some of the trade-offs with tree removal and how variables have changed from when these golf courses were originally built. Phrased differently, the way many old golf courses defended themselves from tee to green no longer offers a defense in the modern game. Aronimink’s greens are the challenge — perhaps the sole true challenge — this week. 

Xander Schauffele: “When I hear certain designers saying, I'm going to restore this course to 1915, I'm like, ‘Well, it probably takes a good hundred years for a nice tree to grow, just to take it out, just to say it was where it was before.’ I think people keep talking about distance and how the game is played, but just put a bunch of trees on a course – I think Hilton Head is a good example. Do I like Hilton Head? Not really. But it's hard. It's kind of crazy, if you look at the winning score at Hilton Head and the winning score at Doral, one's called Hilton Head, and one's called the Blue Monster. You're like, ‘I think the winning score at Miami is lower.’ It's just funny when you kind of look at it in that sense.”

Joseph LaMagna: Leaving aside that the golf course is called Harbour Town, not Hilton Head, this is an unfortunate quote that strips all context for why a golf course might remove trees. If we put a 100-foot-tall tree in front of the first green at Aronimink this week, the hole would play much harder but it would also be a completely unnecessary and gross gimmick. I think we’d all agree the new tree I’ve just imagined should be taken down. So if you accept the premise that not all trees are net positives, now we’re just negotiating which are additive and which are detrimental. The subject of tree removal requires some nuance. Anyway, stay tuned for an additional post on this topic. 

Xander Schauffele: “This week you'll see guys kind of gouging it (out of the rough) towards the green. If there was a tree there, you'd be chipping out sideways. This is the type of rough where you can't get a ball to curve at all. You just grab a high-lofted club and hit a knuckleball and have it kind of trundle somewhere.”

Joseph LaMagna: A substantive explanation for how trees enhance the challenge. It doesn’t absolve the previous bad quote, but I’ll take it! 

Scottie Scheffler: “A lot of it depends on the conditions. If you look at this golf course specifically, between it being soft and firm, I think is two totally different tests. If you're looking at this golf course when it's soft, I think there's a lot of stuff you can kind of get away with in terms of like you can hit it pretty far offline. There's not many things to block you. And if you hit it really far offline when there's no trees, you can just get to the crowd and you have a cleaner lie than if you're a yard or two off the fairway.

“Then with soft greens you're able to play a pretty simple strategy of golf where you can kind of play that sort of bomb-and-gouge-type strategy. That's probably what works best because, when you have greens that have a ton of pitch back to front and they're really soft, it's easier to take off spin when you're in the rough. So the reward for hitting the fairway is not that great, but if you look at this golf course when it's firm, the fairways are hard to hit. Then if you want to get the ball close to a lot of these pins, you have to control your spin and control your distance really well, which is not that easy to do out of the rough. It's easy to take off spin, but it's not easy to control the spin…

“There's certain spots on this golf course where I think it can get really challenging if it's firm and fast. A lot of it depends on conditions and golf course setup. If they decide to water the greens, it's going to be a completely different setup than it is if the greens are quite firm.”

Joseph LaMagna: One of the best explanations you’ll read for the impact of firmness on the test a golf course presents and the difficulty of penalizing wide misses in the modern era.

‍Justin Rose: “There's definitely some bunkers at 310 or 305 that if you can carry those, the fairway does get much wider. So from that point of view I think if you have that gear I think there's a lot of players in the field that that is the case, it's not just going to suit particularly Rory, it's going to suit a lot of guys that can carry the ball 300 plus.”

Odds, Ends, and Amusements 

Rory McIlroy: “I think match play is the purest form of the game. I think it's a shame that we don't have any match play really in the schedule apart from the Ryder Cup or the Presidents Cup. It would be nice to get some more match play on the schedule for sure.”

Joseph: Most network executives or Tour officials will be quick to point out the pitfalls of match play as a television product, but those people miss the forest for the trees. Match play is integral to the spirit of the sport, and its absence from the professional golf calendar needs to be rectified. 

Justin Rose: “I've played so many different sets of irons in the last five years that I just don't think that it's a big deal…The fact I haven't played great the last two weeks has got nothing to do with the irons either…I've probably, in the last five years, maybe used eight sets maybe, I would say. Across maybe four or five different brands.”

Joseph LaMagna: Rose looking to extinguish the narrative that the recent iron swap to McLarens is responsible for a downturn in his game. 

Justin Rose: “After the Masters I went home and there was a lot to absorb there, that was a tough loss..the first two weeks back have been just about finding my feet again, to be honest with you. So I really don't feel like I've been sort of neglecting any part of my game. I don't feel like there's been a lot of other distractions to other elements of my game. I just think that there's cycles of form and there's cycles of things you got to work through mentally.”

Joseph LaMagna: On our PGA Championship preview episode of the Fried Egg Golf Podcast, Andy Johnson suggested that Rose’s recent downturn in performance could potentially be attributed to getting over a soul-crushing loss at Augusta National. Justin Rose offered some supporting evidence for that in his pre-tournament presser. 

Collin Morikawa: “I think last year for the Truist was one of the first times I really played out here in Philadelphia, and I think it was amazing. I think we saw a lot more fans than we do in some cities that we go to.”

Joseph LaMagna: A win for the famously most passionate and even-keeled fans in sports! 

Collin Morikawa: “Overall, still kind of dealing with some back stuff, honestly. Like, I wish I was 100 percent healthy. The body doesn't feel bad, just it's uncomfortable, and there's a trust factor I'm kind of having to deal with, which is – I've never had to deal with it.”

Joseph LaMagna: Unfortunate news from Morikawa, who has played admirably through a back injury that forced him out of the Players Championship. He will be hoping for warm temperatures this week in Philadelphia! 

Scottie Scheffler: “When you look at youth sports today, I think you see a lot of parents that are overzealous…I would encourage parents today to support kids and help them do their best. My mom always did one thing that was interesting. She never asked me what I shot. She said, ‘If you want me to know what you shot, you'll tell me. I don't have to ask you what you shot.’”

Joseph LaMagna: A healthy dose of perspective from the best player in the world.

On the Status of LIV Golf and the PIF Pulling Its Funding

Rory McIlroy: “I feel like a lot of us in this room, including me, we almost knew before the players did that this was going to happen. Like I was hearing about this back in March, April time.”

Jon Rahm: “What I can focus on is the next shot. It's the people in charge of LIV, whose job I do not envy for a second, not now, not when things are going good because it's not something I think I can do. It's their job to fix it…I have faith that they're going to come up with a good plan. Until that plan is explained to us, it's essentially – not that there isn't anything to worry about, but I don't think I need to add any attention to it.”

Joseph LaMagna: Independent of LIV’s future, Jon Rahm is going to be fine. He’s made a boatload of money and will never struggle to find a place to play. Still, “not that there isn’t anything to worry about” is an interesting choice of phrase that doesn’t inspire confidence in the trajectory of golf’s renegade league. 

Q: What did you learn from the decision to go to LIV? What have you learned since making that decision?

Jon Rahm: “That is for me to know, and that's about that.”

Joseph LaMagna: Well then! 

Jon Rahm: “To go on that Sunday playing against Scottie, that has the lead, and to feel the support and love from the crowd is what made it really enjoyable…It was a realization of having such support from the crowd and playing good golf that made me realize in a way how I'm truly perceived from the public, as opposed to what I read sometimes.”

Joseph LaMagna: You have to wonder how much joy Rahm has found in the game since signing with LIV. Rahm cares about the traditions of the game, and his on-course results in the four major championships have not been up to his standards over the last couple of years. Whether you attribute that to his signing with LIV or not is a separate question. Clearly, his last sentence indicates awareness of what is said and written about him, which does not always reflect reality in the physical world. It was refreshing to hear Rahm speak to the joy he felt while contending in last year’s PGA Championship at Quail Hollow. Hopefully more joyful, meaningful golf is in Rahm’s future.

Monday, May 11

On the PGA Championship as a major 

Keegan Bradley: “I think what separates the PGA to other majors is they have no agenda at this tournament. Kerry Haigh does an unbelievable job setting up major championship golf courses. You go to the U.S. Open, you know their agenda is they are going to make this ridiculously hard to the point of being unfair.

“You know, at the British Open, the weather, and the Masters is the Masters. It's just going to be tough and stressful.

“PGA Championship could be 3-under could win. Could be 15-under. They just want to host a great tournament, and I think they do an incredible job of that.”

Brendan Porath: I think this is, by and large, a positive thing and a fine point by Keegan. It makes it flexible. But it could also be the first exhibit in a case made that the major suffers most from a lack of identity, thereby making it weak overall.

Garrett Morrison: I find what Keegan is saying here to be a complete (and unintentional) indictment of the tournament. The other majors at least believe in something.

On golf course setup and strategy

Keegan Bradley: “What's great about this golf course, and a lot of golf courses in the northeast, is the hole's going to be right there. You see it and you know what you've got to do. There's not a lot of hazard. It's right there and you have to deal with it…”

Brendan Porath: Is this the new, expanded version of “right in front of you?” I am glad the hole is not hidden. I still have trouble reading between the lines on this kind of commentary.

PJ Clark: Hand up: I have not played much golf outside of the northeastern United States. Is this a feature unique to this area of the country? I would say the overwhelming majority of golf holes that I’ve ever seen contain a hole that you can see and know what you’ve got to do on it. I kind of just assumed that thinking went for golf in every region of the world.

Garrett Morrison: Pure pablum. Just something to say when you have nothing to say.

Matt Fitzpatrick: “But the course setup already is one thing that – the greens at Brookline are a little smaller. Much more slope here. The fairway is just fairway and then rough, and Brookline was staggered. I always think – I'm very biased, but I think that is the best form of setup; that it penalizes wider tee shots but tee shots that would only just miss the fairway aren't really punished.”

Joseph LaMagna: Before you cue the fair police siren, I think Fitzpatrick’s viewpoint is quite reasonable. When wide misses aren’t penalized more significantly than narrow misses, the course becomes susceptible to mindless bombing it around off the tee. That’ll be something to watch this week: do wide misses meet a steep penalty, a difficult characteristic to achieve, especially on a tight property where wide misses may get relief from tournament infrastructure. 

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Odds, Ends, and Amusements 

Q: “You're a northeast guy. This is a northeast course. Do you get an extra energy from the crowd and from the venue being in a northeast course, having a tournament here?”

Keegan Bradley: “Definitely. Yeah, I even went out on my deck today when I was at my house and I could smell, like, the northeast. I could smell the grass. It was different.”

Garrett Morrison: Credit to Keegan for playing along, I guess.

Brendan Porath: I’ve included the question here because that is an insane reach and we must stop crowbarring Keegan as a son of just every locale in America. We’ve already anointed him as a Boston boy, Vermont native, New Englander, New York tough, Jupiter cool, and now he’s also a Philly guy? We need to settle down. I thought the Boston + New York double-dipping was too much last year. But now, based on smells, we’ll give him the whole northeast. Does that include Philadelphia? He did add, “Philly is a little bit south for me but I'll take it. It's northeast to me” while saying he felt a duty to represent the whole area.

Jordan Spieth: Doral Saturday afternoon was a very difficult time to be playing. It was pumping, and I actually hit some really nice shots finishing up. I doubled 18 without really missing a shot. 

Joseph LaMagna: Look, we know what he’s saying. You can run into big numbers without necessarily hitting a bad shot. But unfortunately this quote is a little on the nose for how Jordan Spieth has been playing. Some good stretches, a few big numbers mixed in, and not a whole lot of contending. 

Matt Fitzpatrick: “You can understand how top players have that curiosity to try and improve, and, all being well, you can continue to improve. The game of golf isn't necessarily that way. But I always enjoy looking at players’ graphs on Data Golf. Like you can see their career span, and there are very few, I would say, very, very few, that don't at least have a drop-off, and then obviously they go back up again. But that is the game of golf. You always have to take the rough with the smooth.”

Joseph LaMagna: A healthy perspective from Fitzpatrick who has done a remarkable job returning to an elite level after a drop-off in his own career. It can be easy to lose sight of the long term when you’re struggling — or succeeding — in this sport, but understanding the natural ups and downs of the game is an essential piece of never getting too high or too low. 

Garrett Morrison: I feel like Fitz will end up coming out of nowhere to win a major in his 50s. He just seems to love the process.

Q: Do you feel like you're bringing any off-the-course advantages with the familiarity of this being in your backyard?

Braden Shattuck: “I don't know if I have an advantage over other players in the field, considering they are all the best in the world.”

Brendan: This dose of #perspective from the club pro made me chuckle. Shattuck is the pro at nearby Rolling Green but said he’d played Aronimink only twice in some 31 years in the area.