With cool conditions and blustery winds rolling through the property, Friday morning's action at Aronimink looked more like The Open across the Atlantic than the PGA Championship.
That made scoring incredibly difficult for the morning wave in Round 2, with overnight co-leader Scottie Scheffler among those affected.
The World No. 1 bogeyed three of his first four holes to start the day but battled back with three birdies to shoot a 1-over 71. After the round, Scheffler touched on the challenging conditions and the mental test Aronimink presented.
"There's also just some things that are out of your control. You just got to continue to try to hit good shots, and most of the pins today were, I mean, kind of absurd," Scheffler said. "They were just so far into the areas where we thought the pins were going to be, and then they just - like the one on 14 was probably the hardest pin that I've seen in a long time just because there's literally like a spine and they're like, 'Oh, we'll just put the pin right on top of it.' And you're like, 'All right. Well, I'll see what I can do.' Just challenging."
The defending PGA Championship winner is playing in his 28th major and has seen a wide variety of courses and conditions over his career. However, he was adamant that Friday's setup is among the toughest he's seen.
"This is the hardest set of pin locations that I've seen since I've been on TOUR, and that includes U.S. Opens, that includes Oakmont," Scheffler admitted. "I asked (Mark Fulcher), who caddies for Justin Rose. He's been around a long time. And I asked (caddie Ted Scott), too, 'Have you seen anything like this before?' They said maybe Shinnecock is the only place they have seen that has pins that could compare to this."
The overall scoring reflected the significant change in conditions from Thursday. Friday's morning wave shot a combined 220-over, while the opening-round waves shot 166- and 187-over, respectively.
Despite facing the difficult pins, Scheffler continued to flex his world-class iron game, finishing the round ranked fifth in the field in strokes gained: approach. That result kept him close on the leaderboard in spite of his less-than-stellar day driving the ball.
