Looking ahead to the weekend at the 2026 PGA Championship - ESPN

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — The second round of the PGA Championship is in the books and for the second day in a row, Aronimink more than held its own — it pushed the best players in the world to the brink.

Thanks to some nearly impossible pin placements by the PGA of America, the leaders are only at 4-under halfway through the championship. The leaderboard remains as tightly bunched as ever, with a whopping 27 players sitting within four shots of the lead, including seven former major winners.

The weekend looks like it's once again set to produce a patented PGA Championship finish — tightly contested and truly anyone's game.

Paolo Uggetti: In today's game, players are often the ones dominating the golf course, dissecting its challenges with ease and scoring at will. Save for a few tournaments every year, that appears to be the norm.

Friday at Aronimink was not one of those days. The course, buttressed by a devilish set of hole locations, rapid greens and a steady breath of wind, fought back and, in many cases, won.

The PGA of America did not mess around Friday — it placed pins on slopes and crowns and on edges that fell off Donald Ross greens like they were on the brink of a skyscraper. It asked players to hit 4-irons into 10-foot circles and precise wedges into pockets that perplexed even the best players in the world.

Scottie Scheffler called the pins the hardest he had ever seen, harder than U.S. Open setups, harder even than Oakmont. Other players used the word «impossible» and danced around the word «unfair.» Whatever the adjective you wanted to apply to it, the consensus was that it left players with no choice but to hit the shots, hit them well or deal with the harsh consequences.

This is a PGA Championship we're