NEWTON SQUARE, Pa. – The second major championship of the year is here.

Professional golf has returned to the Philadelphia metro area, a place not lacking for incredible golf offerings. Aronimink Golf Club, the Donald Ross jewel, is the host of this week’s PGA Championship, a venue the PGA TOUR has some history with but has not been to in eight years. The week holds plenty of intrigue. As was the case at the Masters, most of the top players come in great form. It has all the ingredients for a great week.

So what should you watch for? Here are five trends worth tracking as the PGA Championship gets underway.

Scottie Scheffler’s approach play

Scottie Scheffler’s first four months of the season could best be described as weird.

He won his first start at The American Express by four strokes, the opening salvo in what figured to be a dominant year. Then things got difficult, at least by Scheffler standards. He struggled in first rounds and attempted numerous enthralling comebacks that fell short. He looked irritated and out of it at Bay Hill and TPC Sawgrass. Then things flipped again, beginning at the Masters. He finished runner-up there, the first of three straight second-place finishes leading into this week’s PGA Championship.

So what has helped Scheffler stabilize? The superpower that alluded him to start the year. Even when he played well in the early months, his biggest deficiency was his iron play – historically the part of his game that was his biggest asset. A quick rundown of the Strokes Gained statistics illuminates the issue. He’s top 10 off-the-tee, around the green and tee-to-green. He’s 14th in putting, but he’s only 42nd in approach following three consecutive seasons of finishing No. 1.

All along, it’s been the question of when, not if that ball-striking prowess would return. The answer might be now. Here’s the progression of his SG: Approach finishes per start.

• The American Express – 47th
• WM Phoenix Open – 19th
• AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am – 34th
• The Genesis Invitational– 36th
• Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard – 44th
• THE PLAYERS Championship – 37th
• Masters Tournament – third
• RBC Heritage – 23rd
• Cadillac Championship – sixth

It’s not a mistake that Scheffler’s most consistent stretch is matched with his best run of ball-striking. It should also strike fear in the PGA Championship field. Scheffler is rounding into form at the right time.

Justin Rose and Aronimink

There’s little course history to work off of this week. Aronimink has hosted three major men’s tournaments in the last 17 years, and only two players in this week’s field played in all three: Justin Rose and Rickie Fowler.

That said, Rose’s course history is nothing to scoff at. He won in his course debut at the 2010 AT&T National, the second TOUR win of his career. He returned the next year and finished T15, but the tournament moved away from the course and didn’t return until the 2018 BMW Championship as the penultimate leg of the Playoffs. Rose had a putt to win on the 72nd hole, but he lipped out and lost in a playoff to Keegan Bradley. Nevertheless, the result propelled Rose to world No. 1 for the first time. He won the FedExCup the next week.

So can the lone golfer with a legitimate sample size at Aronimink contend again? Rose is often a horse for courses, playing specific golf courses very well. He’s won twice at Torrey Pines and is an annual contender at Augusta National, even if he hasn’t won it.

“He’s a savant when it comes to how you strategically play a course,” Rose’s coach Mark Blackburn told PGATOUR.com. “The golf courses he plays well at historically, they fit his eye, he knows how to play them and he’s able to navigate. When it comes to major championships, one of the things is, those are those special moments that he wants to have an opportunity in. I think his focus is more, it’s harder. He knows what to do in a hard golf tournament.”

Rose’s play has slightly cooled after a strong start to the year. After finishing T13 and T3 at THE PLAYERS Championship and Masters, he’s gone T65-T45 over the last two weeks. Notably, that coincides with his change to McLaren Golf irons, a sign that he is still acclimating to his new equipment.

Maybe a trip back to Aronimink is enough to reignite Rose’s best golf.

Jordan Spieth’s Grand Slam troubles

This will be Jordan Spieth’s 10th attempt at trying to close out the career grand slam at the PGA Championship. While Rory McIlroy grabbed much of the career grand slam talk over the last decade, Spieth’s pursuit of the PGA has gone under the radar. Mostly because he’s rarely been close. Spieth finished T28-T12-T3 in his first three attempts after he won the U.S. Open to grab the third leg of the slam. Since then? He has zero top-20 finishes.

Is there any reason to believe this year will be different? Spieth has had pockets of brilliant play in 2026, though he has not been able to maintain it for all four rounds. He’s still searching for his first top-10 this season. His one start at Aronimink in 2018 was underwhelming, with a solo 55th-place finish.

“I have had weeks where I'm leading in putting, weeks where I've leading in driving, weeks where I am leading in ball-striking, and then I just haven't been able to kind of put them all together,” Spieth said. “So I should be confident that I have at least each part of the game as a weapon. It's just focusing on the right things, putting it together, limiting the mistakes, and then when something feels a little bit off, managing to be able to shoot a couple under par versus a couple over par.”

Major pedigree

When’s the last time an unexpected name won the PGA Championship? Six of the last eight PGA Championship winners had already won a major in their career. The two outliers? Xander Schauffele in 2024, though he was the third-ranked player in the world, and Collin Morikawa, who was 12th in the world at the time.

That follows the general trend across the majors, which have increasingly been won by the very best golfers, but is particularly pronounced at this championship. There has not been a surprise winner like J.J. Spaun in years. Jimmy Walker in 2016 was the last true outlier.

So will that streak continue?

Many of the most in-form golfers fit the trend. Scheffler. McIlroy. Matt Fitzpatrick. All have won majors previously. The notable exception is Cameron Young, though his major record is about as good as it gets without an actual trophy.

Rory’s post-Masters form

In the immediate aftermath of Rory McIlroy’s most recent Masters victory, he declared he would not repeat the post-victory hangover that plagued the rest of his 2025 season.

There’s only one week to go off thus far – a rather uninspiring T19 at Quail Hollow Club, a course he’s known to dominate – making the PGA Championship the first true test of that statement.

McIlroy took months to put the 2025 Masters behind him, a victory he was happy to soak in, even if it came at the expense of the next two major championships.

He had a tenuous relationship with the media, evading them at times and being short in others. It was a confusing stretch that McIlroy later admitted was born of a lack of purpose.

The Masters was his mountaintop. He summitted it. Now what? McIlroy wasn’t sure. That objective seems clearer now. He wants to win more majors and push himself into the conversation as one of the greatest golfers of all time. He already is, but there are a few more big fish left to catch.

A win this week at Aronimink would set those goals fully in motion and a poor finish would create the same questions that followed him around last year. There’s perhaps no player that has a bigger delta in what the conversation could be coming out of this week.