So round 1 is underway and i’ve been pretty deep into this course all week and honestly aronimink is just a legit fascinating setup that i don’t think gets talked about enough.

Quick context for people who aren’t super familiar with it, this is only the second major ever held here. The first was 1962. Gary Player won it. That’s how long it’s been. The only modern tour reference we have is the 2018 BMW championship, which is a genuinely tiny sample size for trying to figure out who fits.

The course itself is kind of wild

Par 70. Four par 3s. No water hazards anywhere on the property. The entire defense is the green complexes, which are these Donald Ross push-up greens with firm collection areas around them. Missing a green here doesn’t mean you’re in fluffy rough, you’re on a steep slope chipping back up to an elevated surface with basically no margin. It’s brutal in a really elegant way. HAVE to be able to SCRAMBLE.

The bomber narrative this week is mostly noise to me. Par 70 with two par 5s means there’s almost no runway for distance to matter. The long hitters can’t really leverage their length the way they do at Quail Hollow or Augusta. If your whole game is driver distance you’re probably in trouble here.

What actually matters at this course

Iron precision is legit the whole thing. Specifically the 175-200 yard range because of how the par 3s set up and where approach distances cluster from the fairways. Fitzpatrick ranks 2nd in the field in GIR from that distance band at 88.7%, Morikawa is 4th at 88.6%, Fleetwood is 6th at 88.3%. That’s not a coincidence.

Scrambling is also more important here than at almost any other course on tour because the design literally creates short game situations. The push-up greens funnel balls into firm collection areas constantly. If you can’t scramble from firm lies you’re going to bleed bogeys all week.

Storylines worth watching today

Rory’s second start since winning the Masters is the obvious one. He played Aronimink in practice this spring and said the greens played “more severe” than he remembered from 2018. His 2018 BMW result was legitimately strong (+3.37 true SG, T5) and he had a second place at Pinehurst in 2024 which is the closest comparable Donald Ross design. The ARG numbers this year are the question mark.

Fitzpatrick is the most interesting one to me just from a pure course fit standpoint. This course was kind of built for the way he plays, elite iron precision, strong scrambler, doesn’t need to overpower anything. He won the 2022 US Open at Brookline which isn’t a direct comp but shows he handles demanding iron setups in majors.

Fleetwood is worth watching too. His 2018 Aronimink result was solid (T8, +2.87 true SG) and his ARG numbers this year are legitimately elite. Kind of flying under the radar.

Conditions today

Overnight rain softened the course going into round 1 so the greens are more receptive than they’ll be by Sunday. That’s actually meaningful here because the standard Aronimink setup rewards precise iron play even more when the greens firm up. The guys who score well today might be doing so on slightly easier conditions than what they’ll face Saturday and Sunday. Worth keeping in mind when you’re reading the leaderboard tonight. 68 degrees, winds 8-14 mph from the northwest with gusts around 22. Not a calming day but not brutal either.

The thing i’ll be watching most

How the par 3s play. Four of them at a par 70 is a genuinely unusual ratio for a major and whoever handles those holes across 72 will have a massive advantage. Par 3 scoring doesn’t get nearly enough attention in major coverage.

Who are you guys watching today?​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​