The PGA Championship will take place at Aronimink Golf Club just outside of Philadelphia, and Rory McIlroy doesn’t believe the course will test everyone.
McIlroy enters the second Major of the 2026 season coming off another win at Augusta, to win back-to-back Masters. As the Northern Irishman looks for his third major championship, he believes this course won’t test everyone’s bag, and he believes it’s all about just hitting it as far as possible.
“I like the style of golf. I like the bunkering,” McIlroy said on Tuesday. “There’s a lot of bunkers. I think it provides quite a nice bit of variety with shorter par-4s, a couple of longer par-4s. The par-3s, there’s three pretty long ones and a shorter one. I think in this day and age, I’m not sure if it’s going to test all aspects of your bag. There’s going to be a lot of, gain, as I said, 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.”
If the goal is to hit it as far as possible off the tee, it is good news for McIlroy, who’s one of the longest hitters on the PGA Tour.
If McIlroy can have success with his short game, Aronimink Golf Club could fit his game well to win his second-straight major championship.
Rory McIlroy Believes the Green is Key
As McIlroy said, he doesn’t think the tee box will pose many problems for him.
Instead, McIlroy believes the greens will be the difference in winning and losing the PGA Championship.
“The greens are, as I said at the start, the greens are the main focus this week, and I think getting yourself in the right sections of the greens, making sure you leave yourself below the hole for the most part. That’s the key this week.
“Again, I’ve only played four competitive rounds here. I don’t know the place that well to give you a great answer on what I like about it, but Philadelphia’s a wonderful golfing city, a lot of great golf courses, and this is certainly one of them.”
McIlroy won the PGA Championship in 2012 and 2014.
Tee Times Revealed for PGA Championship
The PGA Championship will begin on Thursday, and the tee times for the first two days have been revealed.
Some of the notable groups and tee times are as follows for the first two rounds of the event (all times ET):
- Ludvig Aberg, Rickie Fowler, Bryson DeChambeau (8:18 a.m./1:43 p.m.)
- Xander Schauffele, Brooks Koepka, Tyrrell Hatton (8:29 a.m./1:54 p.m.)
- Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Jon Rahm (8:40 a.m./2:05 p.m.)
- Viktor Hovland, Collin Morikawa, Shane Lowry (1:32 p.m./8:07 a.m.)
- Tommy Fleetwood, Chris Gotterup, Robert MacIntyre (1:43 p.m./8:18 a.m.)
- Cameron Young, Keegan Bradley, Justin Thomas (1:54 p.m./8:29 a.m.)
- Scottie Scheffler, Matt Fitzpatrick, Justin Rose (2:05 p.m./8:40 a.m.)
Scottie Scheffler enters the PGA Championship as the betting favorite.
Rory McIlroy Drops Bold Comment on PGA Championship Course