While golfers like Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy at the 2026 PGA Championship have been open about their frustrations with the pin locations, at least one player in the field has made his stance clear. After carding 65 in Saturday’s third round, Justin Rose was asked about his opinion on Aronimink’s much-debated pin placement. And he does not agree with the infamous hype.
“I had bigger problems to worry about.” He said in the post-round conference, “I was just trying to get my game going, and maybe I didn’t notice how difficult the flags were. I kind of felt like I wasn’t chasing them anyway, to be honest with you.”
Justin Rose played the first two rounds on the same green in the same wind, facing the same pins as every other player in the field. And he, too, struggled. He secured a 73 in round one and another 73 in round two, surviving the cut only because he holed out a chip for eagle on the final hole of Friday’s round.
He seemed to have made adjustments and was working on a couple of things before round three. He entered on Saturday morning and put the ball in play off the tee. He carded six birdies and no bogeys on the moving day. He sure had a good day, but he does not pretend that the pins were easy.
“There were a lot of shots; even when you were on the green from 30 to 40 feet, you would be hitting putts up to those pins and looking at it, and it was just very awkward,” he said. “You can’t have it both ways. You can’t have 40-yard-wide fairways and middle-of-the-green pins.”
Aronimink is a shorter course by major championship standards, designed by Donald Ross in the golden age of golf. Because the par fours aren’t long enough to require long irons into the greens, players are hitting wedges at most of them. The PGA of America setup, overseen by Kerry Haig, placed the flags precisely to offset that advantage. Rose also pointed out that the pin positions were not even improvised. Dots were marked on the greens before the week even began.
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As we have seen the entire week, the complaints about the pins’ location have been loud. Rory McIlroy called the bunch leaderboard “a sign of not-great setup,” arguing it failed to separate the better players from the rest. Scottie Scheffler went further, calling the pin placements “kind of absurd.”
Interestingly, not everyone in the field has been struggling, and that may be the clearest argument against the complaints.
Maverick McNealy, the 36-hole co-leader, has been keeping the ball in the right parts of the greens, avoiding the slopes that were catching everyone else out. Aldrich Potgieter, who shared the lead at points during the second round, also put it plainly.
“I didn’t feel like I had to putt over some of these big slopes. I definitely put myself in a really good position on the greens.”
Perhaps the course is rewarding patience and positioning over aggression, which is exactly what a major setup is supposed to do. Having said that, the biggest story surrounding Rose this week had nothing to do with pin positions.
Can Justin Rose’s iron form hold at the biggest moment?
The 13-time PGA Tour champion switched to McLaren irons in late April, and the numbers since have not been encouraging. Before the switch, Rose ranked 28th in the strokes gained on approach across seven tournaments.
In the three events after that, that figure has dropped sharply, ranking him 59th. He finished outside the top 60 at both the Cadillac Championship and the Truist Championship after debuting the new equipment. Rose came into the PGA Championship already defending his decision publicly.
“The fact I haven’t played great the last two weeks has nothing to do with the irons,” he said ahead of the tournament.
His caddie, Mark Fulcher, one of the most experienced loopers on the Tour, was similarly unbothered. Rose’s Saturday round, where he led the strokes-gained approach in the field, gave some weight to that confidence.
The 2013 U.S. Open champion has never won the PGA Championship but maybe this is the year he takes home the Wanamaker trophy.
