![\"Potgieter](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/c-gettyimages-2276450972.jpg\")
<\/p>\nNewton Square, Pennsylvania\u00a0\u2014\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
\n Somewhere around the 16th tee, just as Aldrich Potgieter was about to take a cut, a man in the gallery asked a pertinent question: \u201cIs there anyone in this group worth watching?\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n At the time, Potgieter, at 5-under, was atop the leaderboard at the PGA Championship. However, he now trails leaders Maverick McNealy and Alex Smalley by a stroke heading into the weekend at 3-under.\n <\/p>\n
\n In defense of the curious gentleman, it was a fair question. While five-deep crowds chased the group of Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm and Jordan Spieth around the course, only a few stragglers found their way to the ropes to watch Potgieter. He is more of a \u201cwho?\u201dthan a who\u2019s who in golf.\n <\/p>\n
\n As he continued to hold the lead during the second round, even those paid to know a thing or two about golf found themselves trying to figure just who he was on the fly. At one point, Sirius XM golf analysts debated on air how to pronounce the South African player\u2019s first name.\n <\/p>\n
\n Did it sound like Alrdrick? Or Aldritch? Hard K is the answer. Amusingly and in keeping with Philadelphia, the handful of fans who did find their way to the ropes crafted their own nickname.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cLet\u2019s go Pot,\u201d one yelled. \u201cWay to go, Potty,\u2019\u2019 screeched another.\n <\/p>\n
\n Presumably, Potgieter did not sign off on the moniker.\n <\/p>\n
\n He wound up ceding the lead after bogeying the last two holes, but the 21-year-old still will be packaged with some far more familiar names on the Saturday of a golf major. That\u2019s a rather large leap for a player who not only was +4300 to win here at the start of the week, but he was +55 after he posted a minus-three on Thursday to share the lead with the likes of Scottie Scheffler.\n <\/p>\n
\n Blessed with the insouciance of youth, he seemed entirely nonplussed by what will certainly be an unaccustomed bout with stardom come Saturday. He even found a way to put a spin on his final two bogeys.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThere\u2019s going to be a lot of people out following us,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cBut I think it will be better than the final group, maybe, or something like that. So I think there\u2019s a lot of positives still taking into this weekend being in the position I am instead of leading by one or tied for the lead.\u2019\u2019\n <\/p>\n
\n That is certainly one way to look at it, then.\n <\/p>\n
\n The reality is, Potgieter is in that beautiful place where he has nothing to lose, a rarity for any professional athlete. If he bombs out, he can return to his entire (not to be confused with relative) anonymity; if he plays well, people will know how to pronounce his name.\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n But he\u2019s had steadier results lately, making the cut in his last four events, with a high bar of a tie for 14th at the Cadillac Championship. It gave him confidence, and when he took to the Aronomink course early on Thursday \u2014 as in the really early morning, with a 6:50 a.m. ET tee time \u2014 he used the quiet to just relax and find his game. He birdied his second hole and rebounded from back-to-back bogeys to finish strong with five birdies over his final 12 holes.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt was nice to kind of get in my own little space and get a groove on early on,\u201d he said of the early-morning quiet.\n <\/p>\n
\n In some ways, Potgieter has been prepping for his star turn for his entire life. Born and raised in Pretoria, South Africa, where he naturally emulated Ernie Els, he was a bit of a prodigy. At eight, he left his home country for Australia to pursue his golf career.\n <\/p>\n
\n The relocation package paid off. He won the South Australian Junior Masters by nine strokes and in 2022, became the second youngest player, at 17, to win the Amateur Championship. Two years later, he continued to add his name to the record books, this time becoming the youngest winner in Korn Ferry history (edging Jason Day by 105 days) and a year ago, at just 20, won his first PGA event.\n <\/p>\n
\n In keeping with his theme of being first for his age, Potgieter\u2019s Thursday share of the lead ranked him as the youngest player since Sergio Garcia in 1999 (when he was 19) to even share a spot atop the standings in any round of the PGA Championship.\n <\/p>\n
\n Potgieter is, as one of the course volunteers called him, a \u201cmasher,\u201d a fitting ability for an athlete who dabbled in rugby and wrestling before settling on golf for good. He used the word \u201cattack\u201d more than once when discussing his approach, admitting that he plays better golf when he doesn\u2019t think so hard about playing good golf. His aim is not rocket science \u2014 hit the fairway, hit the ball far and make it easier to get to the greens.\n <\/p>\n
\n And until the last two holes \u2014 his lone bogeys of the round \u2014 the plan served him well. Rather than kick himself for what could have been, Potgieter was philosophical for what had happened.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThere was no big expectations of to maybe win or something like that,\u201d Potgieter said of his pre-PGA goals. \u201cBut I am going how for two weeks after this. It was kind of make something worth taking home.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Like making people learn how to pronounce your name, maybe?\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Newton Square, Pennsylvania\u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Somewhere around the 16th tee, just as Aldrich Potgieter was about to take a cut,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":800190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[1430,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-800189","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116583366789757985","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/800190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}