Scheffler hangs on as McNealy, Smalley share PGA lead

Scottie Scheffler did not back out of the race at Aronimink Golf Club, but he did walk straight into a setup he said tested the edge of what a championship should ask. After the PGA of America posted Thursday’s pin locations, Scheffler said the course was being pushed “as far as they can,” and after Friday’s round he called the pins the hardest he had seen since joining the PGA Tour, even by U.S. Open standards.

That debate now sits beside the leaderboard. Maverick McNealy and Alex Smalley shared the 36-hole lead at 4-under, with McNealy following a 3-under 67 and Smalley adding a 1-under 69. Scheffler, the defending PGA Championship winner, signed for a 1-over 71 and stood at 2-under overall, three shots off the pace after starting the championship as a co-leader. His over-par round was his first in this championship since the third round of 2024.

The course did not make the argument subtle. Friday brought swirling winds and cooler temperatures, and nearly every flag was tucked into a far corner of the green or placed just over a severe slope. Scheffler said the locations were “kind of absurd,” explaining that they were farther from the expected spots than players anticipated. The setup sharpened an old question in major championship golf: when does demanding precision expose elite players, and when does it start to distort the test?

Aronimink, a Donald Ross design in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, has long offered that kind of tension. Its heavily contoured greens and severe slopes were built to punish anything less than exact approach play, and the PGA Tour’s own preview had suggested low scores were possible only if rain softened the ground. If the course dried, the back nine could show its teeth. That is exactly the argument playing out now at the 108th PGA Championship, where the leading names on paper, Scheffler and Rory McIlroy, have been joined near the top by McNealy and Smalley instead.

The leaderboard has turned the championship into a referendum on setup as much as execution. Aronimink is hosting its second PGA Championship and its first since Gary Player won there in 1962. The course is handing out 750 FedExCup points, but the bigger prize is proving that stern conditions can still produce a fair title fight. So far, McNealy and Smalley have answered best, while Scheffler remains close enough to keep the argument alive.