Bryson DeChambeau chose to skip his pre-tournament press conference at the 2026 PGA Championship, but he did sit down with ESPN’s Garrett Johnston at Aronimink, and the two-time major champion has one thing on his mind: the conditions.
“I’ve played there before. I like it. I played it when it rained, but I want to see it in firm conditions, though,” he said. “I won two events and thought I was coming in hot. It was a good test of golf. I just don’t feel like I was in the best state with my game relative to wet conditions. But I’ve won a bunch now in wet conditions, and hopefully I know how to play it.”
In a tweet, Johnston shares that DeChambeau was candid about his relationship with the historic Donald Ross layout on Newtown Square as he raises concerns about the course.
This concern is not a minor one. DeChambeau’s entire game is engineered around maximizing distance and exploiting the firmness of fairways to extract extra yards and roll. Soft, waterlogged conditions do the opposite for him, as they take the pace off the ball and rob him of running the game that stretches his distance advantage.
When Aronimink was last visited by professional golf, the 2018 BMW Championship, it rained heavily throughout the week. DeChambeau arrived that year riding two consecutive wins, the Del Technologies Championship and the Northern Trust. However, it ended in ruins. He finished tied for 18th at 12 under, a result that, in the context of a three-win run, felt like a missed opportunity.
Bryson shared these thoughts on Aronimink w/me, Bob Harig & Mark Schlabach last week:
“I’ve played there before, I liked it. I played when it rained, but I want to see it in firm conditions though. I won two events and thought I was coming in hot (2018 BMW). It was a good test…
— Garrett Johnston (@JohnstonGarrett) May 13, 2026
His LIV Golf teammate Jon Rahm, who also played the 2018 BMW at Aronimink, described the experience similarly ahead of this week.
“What I remember of that event at Aronimink was that it was extremely wet. We had a lot of rain. From what I hear, it hasn’t rained here in quite a while, and the golf course is already firm.”
So the speculations among LIV players about the conditions of the course and weather are high.
Earlier this year, DeChambeau won back-to-back LIV Golf titles in Singapore and South Africa, both in a playoff fashion, becoming the first LIV player to win consecutive events since Taylor Gooch in 2023. In fact, he has five individual LIV titles in total, and the 2026 season has been his most dominant run on that circuit. But the Masters in April was a grave punch. Despite arriving in Augusta fresh off those two wins, DeChambeau missed the cut. Now the PGA Championship represents his first real chance to assert himself in a major championship after a stumble.
The stakes of this championship also extend well beyond a trophy. Saudi Arabia’s LIV Golf circuit is losing its PIF funding after 2026, and DeChambeau’s return to the PGA Tour is also looking shaky. In fact, winning a Wanner Maker trophy would make it his third major, and it would move him into a rarefied group of active players. As multiple reports have also noted this week, the last six major winners have all come from the PGA Tour, and until that changes, DeChambeau’s position may remain what it is.
LIV players are preparing for the PGA Championship.
Jon Rahm sat down with reporters on Tuesday at Aronimink, and the questions went well beyond the championship. With PIF confirming it will pull LIV’s funding after 2025, he was asked whether he joined the tour believing he would be the catalyst for a merger with the PGA Tour, and his answer was a careful one.
“I was never thinking that I was going to be any sort of weight that would tip the scales to make things come together. That was never an argument in my mind.”
Despite the noise, Rahm has been in strong form coming into Aronimink. He has two wins, three runner-up finishes, and a healthy lead in the LIV’s season-long standings. He has described last week’s event at the Trump National as “a proper test of golf” and a useful warm-up heading into the major.
“I didn’t hit it with my best, but you can learn a few things in a week prior to the major,” he said.
On the other hand, Bryson DeChambeau skipped the press conference altogether and channelled everything into the preparation instead. He was the last player seen on the practice range on Monday and the last on the putting green on Tuesday.
