By DOUG FERGUSON<\/p>\n
NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. \u2014 For a major that has long sought an identity apart from the other three, one element of the PGA Championship stands out. It\u2019s one reason two-time champion Justin Thomas and Cameron Young, among the favorites this year, hold it in high regard.<\/p>\n
The opening tee shot May 14 at Aronimink will be struck by Braden Shattuck, the PGA director of instruction at Rolling Green Golf Club, just 10 miles down the road.<\/p>\n
He is among 20 club professionals in the 156-man field. All of them will be back to their day jobs next week, giving lessons and ordering merchandise, not on to the next PGA Tour stop that pays close to $2 million to the winner.<\/p>\n
Young\u2019s father was one of those professionals.<\/p>\n
Dave Young, recently retired as the golf director at Sleepy Hollow in New York, was never among the club pros who qualified for the PGA Championship. But he worked them as a rules official, and was part of the rules committee at the Masters. He played one PGA Tour event, the 1998 Buick Classic in New York.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe PGA Championship, for our family, is a great week,\u201d Young, now the No. 3 player in the world, said May 13. \u201cMy dad was a PGA of America professional forever, kind of embraced the whole package of that. \u2026 Unfortunately, he never qualified for it, but he was a very good player and had a number of chances to throughout his career.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, it\u2019s a cool one for us just given his connection.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mike Thomas also recently retired from Harmony Landing in Louisville, Kentucky. Justin Thomas recalls being in the clubhouse at Valhalla at age 7 \u2014 his dad was a PGA officer then \u2014 when Tiger Woods won the 2000 PGA Championship. He was in the gallery at Valhalla for the 2008 Ryder Cup, high-fiving Phil Mickelson when the Americans won.<\/p>\n
Best of all was winning the PGA Championship in Quail Hollow in 2017 and Southern Hills in 2022. That embrace with his father \u2014 his grandfather also was a longtime pro \u2014 was special.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m well aware everybody feels like it\u2019s the fourth major when it comes to all of them,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t to me. I couldn\u2019t care more of the two I have. It obviously has special meaning to me. I was lucky to have the access I did. I probably got to see and do things a lot of kids didn\u2019t. But it motivated me a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even with the 20 professionals, who qualified in the national tournament two weeks ago at Bandon Dunes, the field has 136 touring pros that represent by far the strongest field of the four majors.<\/p>\n
The PGA Championship likes to hang its hat on field strength, with 97 of the top 100 in the world. What holds it back is the feeling that it doesn\u2019t seem much more than a PGA Tour event on some of the courses where it is played and the score that often wins.<\/p>\n
Scottie Scheffler won at 11-under 273 at Quail Hollow last year. Xander Schauffele won at 21-under 263 at Valhalla the year before. Single digits under par won three years in a row before that.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t know what you\u2019re going to get,\u201d said Harris English, the runner-up last year. \u201cI\u2019ve played a handful now. It\u2019s more like a glorified PGA Tour event. The setup is nothing crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
That will be put to the test at Aronimink Golf Club, which hasn\u2019t hosted a major since the 1962 PGA Championship won by Gary Player. A restoration project from roughly a decade ago has added some fairway bunkers and removed a lot of trees, creating a more open feel of the course.<\/p>\n
The greens have been the biggest topic this week, renowned for the size of the contours that put a premium on distance control with the irons.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very, very classic Northeast,\u201d Young said. \u201cThe grasses are very familiar. The rough is pretty thick, but I feel like it\u2019s a nice combination. The fairways, they\u2019re not super narrow, but they are firm enough that if you hit bad shots that land in the fairway, they can get in the rough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Key to the week is the weather. The forecast changed in the PGA\u2019s favor, with rain expected only the night of May 13 into the early part of the opening round, and mostly dry the rest of the week. The faster a course, the harder it gets to control shots.<\/p>\n
That has been Scheffler\u2019s domain that has kept him atop the world ranking for three years, helped him to victory last year in the PGA Championship and makes him the betting favorite this week.<\/p>\n
Rory McIlroy stepped into a shoe that was a half-size bigger and a little wider and had some cushion around the blister on his right pinky toe. He was all better May 13 for nine holes of practice and doesn\u2019t anticipate any problems the rest of the week.<\/p>\n
Young and Thomas played the front nine for their final practice session, and they will be in the same group for the opening two rounds. For a windy afternoon of practice, the sight of them embodied one aspect of the PGA Championship. Their fathers were following along, both golf professionals, both of whom taught their sons the game.<\/p>\n
On May 14, Young and Thomas and the strongest field chase after the Wanamaker Trophy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By DOUG FERGUSON NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. \u2014 For a major that has long sought an identity apart from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[685,56,3737],"class_list":["post-6596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cameron-young","tag-cameron-young","tag-sports","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}