Scottie Scheffler vents at "kind of absurd" PGA Championship pin locations

Scottie Scheffler labelled the pin positions during the second round of the PGA Championship as "kind of absurd". 

The defending champion shared the lead after 18 holes of the second men's major of the year at Aronimink Golf Club. 

He went round the Donald Ross designed course in 71 strokes on Friday to comfortably make the 36-hole cut. 

But the four-time major winner was made to work extremely hard for his score and didn't hold back when asked how the pin locations affected his strategy. 

"There are also just some things that are out of your control," Scheffler said. 

"You just got to continue to try to hit good shots, and most of the pins today were, I mean, kind of absurd. 

"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.

"I mean, there's literally just 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. And just you know, challenging."

Scheffler stressed that the setup wasn't unfair. 

But he added that the pin locations were the hardest he had seen since since making his PGA Tour debut. 

He added: "I asked Fooch, who caddies for Justin Rose. He's been around a long time – and I asked Teddy too – have you seen anything like this before? 

"They said maybe Shinnecock [Hills] is the only place they have seen that has pins that could compare to this.

"But it's different in a sense on this golf course, because Oakmont [venue of the 2025 U.S. Open], their greens are extremely severe, but they're extremely severe in one direction. 

"Here, it's like the green may slope all this way and then we put the pin down here and then there's also a slope this way.

"And like it's not as, how would you say, natural to the slopes that are there. There's a bit more, I think, that's manufactured into the greens, and it's just very difficult.

"It's difficult to get the ball close to the hole. It's difficult to hole putts, especially when you have big slopes and wind, and I think that's why you see the scores so close to par."

Scheffler is looking for his second victory of the calendar year. 

He won on his first start of the 2025/2026 PGA Tour season at The American Express and, whilst he has not been at his imperious best, has racked up five more top three finishes. 

Last month, Scheffler finished runner-up to Rory McIlroy at the Masters. 

One person who didn't seem to have an issue with the pin locations on Friday was Scheffler's compatriot Chris Gotterup. 

In challenging conditions, Gotterup managed to go round in 65 and dropped only one stroke. 

"One thing that has impressed me about him is just his attitude, the way he goes about things," Scheffler said of Gotterup. 

"He's not a guy that's really going to get very flustered. 

"He may get frustrated from time to time, but he's never going to be a guy that is going to get overly frustrated and have it affect his next shot.

"He just has a really good attitude about the way he goes about things on the golf course, and in life, too.

"He's a great guy to be around, fun guy to hang out with."