The 2026 PGA Championship’s second round has begun at Aronimink Golf Club. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler leads the way among Friday’s early wave. Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau will tee off in the afternoon for Round 2. GOLF’s writers and editors are providing live updates on the PGA Championship first round all day long, from on-site at Aronimink and beyond.
PGA Round 2: What you need to know
Friday’s second round starts with a whopping seven players tied for the lead… and another seven pros tied for second. But Scheffler’s name stands tallest among them. The four-time major winner is the defending PGA champion, and his repeat bid is off to a hot start. But plenty of other stars are in the mix, such as Spieth, Patrick Reed, Jon Rahm and Shane Lowry, to name just a few.
Meanwhile, McIlroy and DeChambeau will be fighting to make the cut on Friday and earn tee times for the weekend.
Notable Round 2 tee times: Martin Kaymer (7:29 a.m. ET); Patrick Reed (8:02 a.m. ET); Scottie Scheffler (8:40 a.m. ET); Bryson DeChambeau (1:43 p.m. ET); Rory McIlroy (2:05 p.m. ET); Jon Rahm (2:05 p.m. ET); Jordan Spieth (2:05 p.m. ET)
Quick links: How to watch the PGA Friday | PGA Round 2 tee times | Scores on PGAChampionship.com
Follow all the Round 2 PGA Championship action below.
My dominant feeling about this championship thus far is that it is … for the ball-knowers. The people who know how hard it is to hit 8-irons in a 20-degree crosswind. Those folks who can squint and see the slopes of a tricky green through their TV screen, which often dampens how obvious a putting surface can bend. This tournament is for the people who understand a chippy 8-iron can be better than a full pitching wedge. Folks who hit their clubs long of the green rather than getting smashed by the wind and leaving it short.
The conditions at Aronimink are perfectly challenging for the best players in the world and what might be average most weeks on the PGA Tour is so good out here. The ball-knowers can see it. I just hope they’re enjoying it!
Approaching the midpoint of this tournament, the very top of the leaderboard isn’t exactly a ratings juggernaut: Smalley, Min Woo Lee, Potgieter, Jaeger. But plenty of names lurking. It will be interesting to see what happens to the cutline, which is plus-2 for now with a bunch of notable players on the wrong side of it, including McIlroy, Fleetwood and Rose. And with that, let the afternoon wave begin!
Scottie Scheffler struggled early and hit just one fairway in his first nine holes. But he looks to be finding his rhythm as he makes the turn toward the easier front side. Seems like he has weathered the worst.
The winds are slowing slightly now, the sun is peaking through and Fitzpatrick has swapped his beanie for golf hat. A rally cap? Could be. He and Scheffler are on the 18th now, their 9th hole of the day. And the conditions are just a tad friendlier as they head to the front side, which is playing easier than the back today. The cutline is still at plus-2 but that stands to shift with the afternoon wave starting soon.
Another reminder of how much architecture matters, how much more fun it is to watch the players wrestling with these complicated greens and the creative recovery shots they require. Aronimink is well-defended in that way, without seeming tricked-up.
The importance of the draw. That’s something more often mentioned at the Open Championship, where the weather can be such a factor. But it’s relevant here today, as the morning groups are dealing with strong and shifting gusts. The forecast calls for those winds to calm as the day wears on.
These guys play a game with which most of us are not familiar. But already this morning there have been some relatable moments. On the par-3 14th, which is into the wind and a brute today, Fitzpatrick and Rose both made double-bogey, Fitzpatrick with a four-putt. And on the 17th, just moments ago, Shane Lowry foozled an iron shot on the par-3 17th, straight into the pond, on a low, slicing trajectory that would have made a 15-handicapper cringe.
Rory McIlroy spoke earlier this week about what he saw as a lack of strategy off the tee here. But errant drives have been getting punished plenty. Scheffler drew a brutal lie just off the fairway on his opening hole (the 10th), and he’s not alone. Whatever his strategy is in the second round, McIlroy has some work to do. He’s plus-4 and the projected cutline is currently plus-2.
Good morning. It’s cool and gusty west of Philly and it’s shaping up to be one of those just-hold-on kinda days at Aronimink. Scottie Scheffler, co-leader heading into the round, bogeyed two of his first three holes to drop back. Cam Young is struggling early. Matt Fitzpatrick has a beanie on. The scoring average so far is a stroke higher than it was yesterday. Combine all that with the gray skies and thick rough, and this looks less like the PGA Championship than the lovechild of the U.S. Open and the (British) Open.
A DEEPER LOOK
Live From is appointment television for golf sickos during major championship weeks, and Paul McGinley showed why on Thursday evening. In attempting to understand the round of World No. 1 (and first-round leader) Scottie Scheffler, McGinley noticed something interesting: Scheffler was managing the golf course very differently than his counterparts.
On a day when stars like Rory McIlroy bombed the ball with abandon (and were punished for it), Scheffler bunted his way around Aronimink, opting for 270-yard drives and long irons on a few holes, including No. 10, which played as the hardest on the golf course on Thursday. The result: A series of easy pars, which helped put Scheffler clear of the Thursday field.
For golf fans hoping to learn more about the biggest moments in the sport, there are few options better than Live From, where nerdy analysis like McGinley’s isn’t just appreciated — it’s celebrated.
Kudos to Brendan Porath of The Fried Egg for sharing the moment, which you can watch below.
Interesting Scottie Scheffler theory and great segment last night with Paul McGinley on Live From, which has been 💪 this week. pic.twitter.com/72sp3uvxzU
— Brendan Porath (@BrendanPorath) May 15, 2026
MR. INEVITABLE
Meet your new PGA Championship second round leader: Patrick Reed.
Reed’s birdied the third hole on Friday morning to put himself tied for the lead at Aronimink, his first major championship lead (or share of it) in 2026.
The former Masters champ’s return from LIV Golf rightfully earned most of the headlines in 2026, especially after Reed volunteered to play for a year on the DP World Tour in order to accelerate his return to the PGA Tour. But his golf has quietly been in impressive form: Reed won twice in three weeks on the DP World Tour earlier this year — sandwiching a T2 between two top finishes. His career has shown us his game can rise to the occasion at the toughest setups, and at a course as surprisingly toothy as Aronimink has proven in the early week, that might be a major advantage.
RETURN OF THE BLOCK
The two lowest scorers among those on the course at 8:30 a.m. local time on PGA Championship?
Yep, just as you predicted: Martin Kaymer and … Michael Block.
Make no mistake, Blockie has had a resurgence at the PGA in 2026 — enjoying a few moments on the other end of the golf celebrity hamster wheel … and carding a couple of birdies while he does it. After a strong opening round, he gave a quintessential press conference in which he playfully discussed, among other things, giving himself a pep talk inside a porta-john.
While nobody has any REAL dreams for the PGA Pro this weekend — at least nothing resembling his famed run to a top-10 finish back at Oak Hill in 2023 — his return to the first page of the leaderboard (-1) reflects a strange phenomenon in our even-more-strange internet world, where celebrity moments arrive (and depart) at warp speed.
Many researchers blame social media platforms for the development. Platforms have reduced the friction between momentary celebrities and the world, and have provided pathways for those same “microcelebrities” to cash in via brand deals and marketing schemes. The resultant environment has increased the velocity of fame and culture, but has also given way to a new kind of celebrity: the person people love to hate.
Blockie was perhaps the golf world’s best example of this phenomenon. He rode one of the feel-good stories of the year at the PGA at Oak Hill to a handful of PGA Tour exemptions, but by the time the U.S. Open rolled around, he was already a tired piece of the golf news cycle. This was an issue, if only because the avalanche of brand and marketing deals he signed after the PGA stipulated that Block remain an omnipresent force in the golf world for months (if not years) to come.
These competing forces came to a head quickly, and Block found himself transformed from magnetic to memetic — literally a punchline in the sport he’d burst onto the scene of just weeks earlier. After briefly suggesting he could take on Rory McIlroy one-on-one, Block’s fate was sealed: He was a punching bag until further notice.
But there’s always another side to the coin, and that has come to fruition at Aronimink. Stars can come back around to relevance almost as quickly as they left. This week, Blockie is a hero again, and he might stay that way for a few more minutes.
This time, he enters the news cycle armed with the most important lesson of internet celebrity: Don’t blink.
What was the biggest surprise Thursday at the PGA Championship?
Read GOLF’s Tour Confidential for the unfiltered opinions of our writers and editors as they break down the hottest topics in the sport. This week, with the PGA Championship at Aronimink, we’ll hit one key topic every night.
One day into the 2026 PGA Championship, seven players — including Scottie Scheffler — are tied for the lead, although there were a handful of surprises on Thursday at Aronimink. Which one stood out to you?
Zephyr Melton, associate game-improvement editor (@zephyrmelton): Garrick Higgo being tardy for his tee time — at a major! — was … something. More surprising was his lack of accountability when facing the media, saying “I was obviously there on time but late.” And yet even more surprising is that he would be tied for the lead without the blunder. What a way to start a major.
Tied for 105th at PGA, Rory McIlroy describes round in 4 letters
Rory McIlroy is 18 holes into his PGA Championship, and there are a handful of ways you could describe what went down in a four-over-74 round at Aronimink Golf Club that has him tied for 105th.
Poor scoring? There was that. Starting on No. 10, McIlroy played the back nine at even par, and he was even through 14 holes. Then he bogeyed 6. Then he bogeyed 7. Then he bogeyed 8. Then he bogeyed 9. According to stats guru and GOLF.com contributor Justin Ray, Thursday was McIlroy’s 990th PGA Tour round, including majors — and the six-time major winner had previously never made bogey or worse on each of his four closing holes.
Could you also call McIlroy’s round an ugly driving day? You could. He hit just five of 14 fairways, which tied him for 139th in the 156-player field.
Bryson DeChambeau’s scene and silence told the story after nightmare PGA start
NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Bryson DeChambeau stood with his arms crossed, staring out into the distance. His team stood around him, two phones ready to film different angles of his swing.
No one said a word.
It was late Wednesday night at Aronimink Golf Club, 15 hours before DeChambeau’s first round tee time at the PGA Championship, and the two-time U.S. Open champion was the only one left on the range as the skies darkened and rain threatened. Finally, DeChambeau took a deep breath and started to walk his team through his thoughts and what he was trying to find in the dirt outside of Philadelphia.
Inside Garrick Higgo’s bizarre (and costly) PGA Championship start
NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Garrick Higgo, a 27-year-old golfer from South Africa, is about as chill as a golfer could be. But early Thursday morning, in the chilly air out here in affluent suburban Philadelphia, a feeling of sickness came over him. Higgo was on the Aronimink Golf Club’s practice putting green, hard by the clubhouse and about 15 feet above the course’s elevated first tee, when the starter said these words:
“From Memphis, Tenn., the 2003 PGA Championship winner, Shaun Micheel.”
The first player in Higgo’s threesome had been summoned to the tee, and Higgo’s two-shot penalty already was in motion. Rule 5.3a.
Everything else is commentary.
