Five days out from the second major of the year, Keegan Bradley joined Smylie Kaufman on The Smylie Show to walk through Aronimink Golf Club hole by hole — the same Donald Ross layout where Bradley lifted the BMW Championship trophy in 2018.
The eight-time PGA Tour winner had just finished a two-day scout of the course with Justin Thomas, and his first impression came back glowing.
"I just was here. It's in incredible shape. Stunning actually considering what time of year it is," Bradley said. "It was rock hard. The fairways get way smaller when they're firm like this."
That firmness is the thread Bradley keeps pulling on. The opening stretch of the par-70 plays short — multiple wedges into greens that slope steeply back-to-front — and Bradley believes the early holes will be where contenders separate themselves.
"These first holes at Aronimink are really getable," he said. "You're going to want to go out and get these holes."
The risk, according to Bradley, lives behind every green. Ross's surfaces, recently restored by Gil Hanse, punish anything long.
"What I find at Aronimink is these back pins are really tough — there's a lot of where you just go over and it's long," Bradley said. "Long is not in good shape."
Asked which hole he loves most, Bradley pointed to the diminutive fifth, a 159-yard par-three guarded by Ross bunkers and a severely tilted putting surface.
"This is my favorite hole on the course," he said. "I could see them doing something here where they make this hole 110 yards and really make a dicey pin. Like one of these holes the U.S. Open's been doing where it's 90 yards, diabolical pin."
The course's defence, in Bradley's reading, lives in iron play.
"The theme of Aronimink is you've got to hit good iron shots," he said. "You have to. These pins are in these sections that are tough to get to, but if you do get them in there, you're going to have a good look."
Bradley also warned about the back-nine pivot. He believes the closing four or five holes will decide the championship.
"The back nine's way harder," he said. "But the last four or five holes are the toughest part of the course."
He saved his best memory for the eighth — a long par three on which he duelled Tiger Woods at the 2018 BMW Championship.
"Tiger was on that other green — number 10. The pin was back right and the pin on 10 was sort of back left. He had the red and black on, he was one behind me, and we were 30 feet from each other," Bradley recalled. "I remember thinking, this is awesome. This is the stuff that you dream about."
Did he make the putt? "I made it. Of course I did. I beat him that day. I beat him. I won the tournament."
Eight years on, Bradley arrives at Aronimink as a Ryder Cup captain who has finally shaken off the post-Bethpage fatigue — "I started to feel normal again only in the last month" — and posted strong finishes at Augusta and Hilton Head. The Aronimink scout, by his own account, was the moment everything clicked.
The 2026 PGA Championship begins Thursday, with Aronimink hosting men's major golf for the first time since the 1962 PGA. If Bradley's read of the firm conditions holds, the field can expect a Donald Ross course that gives away wedges early and demands precision iron play through a brutal back nine.
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*Originally published on [Golf News Global](https://golfnews.global/article/keegan-bradley-aronimink-hole-by-hole-2026-pga-championship-preview). Visit for full coverage.*
