‘One of the Craziest Pins That I’ve Seen’: Golf’s Goliaths Bemoan Aronimink’s Teeth

Tillinghast once described one of his golf courses as a “coy but flirtatious maiden with mocking eyes flashing at you from over her fan. ” He was talking about Merion, across town, but that is the perfect description for Aronimink. Much of the early week chatter at this PGA Championship centered on how the golf course was too pliable.

“You're playing the practice rounds and every pin's in the middle of the green, so it looks easy and feels easier than it always is,” says Chris Gotterup, also noting that was no wind early in the week. Skratch’s Dan Rapaport went so far as to tweet that the course was “lovely” but “I think it’s going to get annihilated by the best players in the world. ” The fetching maiden had set her trap.

Aronimink’s fairways look wide but have so much cant and pitch that many drives land in the short grass only to skitter into the rough, which is not that deep but plays deceptively tough. “It's such a thick blade of grass that, even when the lie looks okay, it catches you so bad,” said Jon Rahm, expounding on something the cognoscenti could not feel without a club in their hands. The greens are not terrifyingly fast but there has been so much talk of their vexing “spines” you would think they were designed by a chiropractor.

“There are very, very few straightforward putts here,” said Tommy Fleetwood. “Sometimes it’s quite an adventure. You can have a 25-footer that is uphill/downhill with four feet of break.