PGA Championship opens at Aronimink with 156-player field, round 1 underway

Aronimink’s first major test quickly separated players who could flight the ball and stay patient from those who tried to force the pace. With the 108th PGA Championship underway at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, the 156-player field faced a course that had been 36 months in the making, and the opening scores pointed to a championship that would reward length, restraint and survival over four days.

The early start began Thursday morning, with the first groups off just after 3:45 a.m. local time, and the weather held up better than it might have. Only about a quarter-inch of rain fell overnight in the Philadelphia area, leaving the course playable rather than softened into a scramble. That mattered immediately on a Donald Ross layout that opened with a 434-yard par 4 and demanded control from the first swing.

Aldrich Potgieter emerged as one of the early co-leaders after a 3-under 67, a score that fit the profile of a player built for major test conditions. The 21-year-old South African had already established himself as the Tour’s longest driver in 2025, averaging about 325 yards off the tee, and that power gave him a clear advantage on a course where distance can open up birdie chances but still leaves little margin for error. Potgieter’s pedigree runs beyond raw length: he won the 2022 Amateur Championship roughly three months before his 18th birthday, making him the second-youngest winner in that event’s history, and he also won the 2023 Junior Invitational at Sage Valley.

The bigger early trend line reached beyond one name. Rory McIlroy arrived at Aronimink fresh off his 2025 Masters victory, which completed the career Grand Slam, but he ended his round with four bogeys, a reminder that even the game’s most accomplished players were not immune to the demands of the setup. Scottie Scheffler, the defending PGA Champion after his 2025 victory at Quail Hollow Club, was still out on the course as the opening round unfolded, another sign that the leaderboard could remain volatile while the field navigated early pressure and changing conditions.

The setting added weight to the week. The PGA Championship returned to Aronimink for the first time since 1962, when Gary Player won there, and the Philadelphia region had not hosted a men’s major since 2013. The championship itself has been played since 1916, with interruptions during World Wars I and II, and it moved from match play to stroke play in 1958 at Llanerch Country Club. The Wanamaker Trophy, at 34 pounds and 29 1/4 inches tall, remains the prize for a field that will need four steady days, not one fast start, to endure.