NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Scottie Scheffler missed a four-foot putt and laughed.
Jon Rahm angrily swung his club after an errant shot and the grass divot hit a volunteer in the face.
Garrick Higgo was 10 seconds late to the first tee and penalized two shots before he even swung a club.
Aronimink Golf Club waited 64 years to host another PGA Championship and made up for lost time in a big way Thursday, including the biggest logjam in a major championship tournament for men’s golf since 1969.
When the long day was over, most predictable was seeing Scheffler’s name atop the leaderboard at 3-under-par 67, though along with six other players. Here’s what was surprising: It’s the first time that Scheffler, the No. 1 player in the Official World Golf Ranking for three years and already a four-time major champion with two Masters titles (2022, 2024) and wins at the British Open and PGA Championship last year, has held at least a share of the lead after 18 holes of one of the sport’s biggest four annual events.
Scheffler wasn’t buying it.
“Is it a really a lead when you’re tied with like six guys?” the 29-year-old Texan told ESPN with a laugh.
Scheffler took advantage of two long birdie putts and one big break on the 17th hole for his lowest start to a tournament since January. He was tied with six others — 41-year-old German player Martin Kaymer, who won the 2010 PGA Championship and the 2014 U.S. Open for his two major titles, was perhaps the most surprising — on a tough day in the Philadelphia suburbs.
Joining them at 67 were Chattanooga resident Stephan Jaeger, Japan’s Ryo Hisatsune, Australia’s Min Woo Lee, South Africa’s Aldrich Potgieter and American player Alex Smalley.
The 36-year-old Jaeger, who is from Germany but played at Baylor School and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, was off to a strong start in a bid to improve on his best result in a major, which was a tie for 21st at the 2024 U.S. Open.
He is in the PGA Championship for the fourth straight year — he was in fourth place after the opening round in 2025 — and he was asked after Thursday’s round about what he likes about the major run by the PGA of America.
“I think the PGA does the best job setting up a hard golf course,” he said in a press conference. “They always give you some easy holes. There’s always hard holes, depending on where we go. …I feel like they always kind of set it up fair, and depending on what the golf course looks like, it might be kind of playing in my wheelhouse a little bit.
“This golf course, the fairways are wide. You can kind of take some bunkers out of play with some longer drives. So I like that kind of golf. I’m aggressive that way off the tee. So I feel comfortable here for sure.”
He is one of three Baylor School graduates in the 156-player field. Harris English (71) was tied for 49th, while Keith Mitchell (73) was tied for 93rd.
Atop the leaderboard, the seven-way tie was the largest at a PGA Championship since nine players shared the lead in 1969 at NCR Country Club in Dayton, Ohio.
“At this moment, it’s anybody’s tournament,” Scheffler said.
Indeed, 48 players were within three shots of the lead. The difference between missing the cut and being part of the lead was six shots.
And to think it could have been eight players. Higgo had a 69, which included a two-shot penalty before the 27-year-old South African even hit a shot for being 10 seconds late to the tee for his group’s starting time.
Two-time reigning Masters champion Rory McIlroy, behind only Scheffler in the Official World Golf Ranking, bogeyed his last four holes for a 74 that sent him to the practice range for most of the afternoon.
Not since the 2008 tournament — with Robert Karlsson and Jeev Milkha Singh at 2-under 68 — has the low score to par after the first round of the PGA Championship been worse than 3 under. Aronimink with its severely sloped greens, fast fairways and plenty of wind that shooed away morning clouds was every bit a major challenge for the 108th edition of the PGA’s big show.
Scheffler has struggled with opening rounds for most of the year since opening with a 63 in his season debut at The American Express, his only victory of 2026 to date, but this was quality work. He missed only one fairway, which led to one of his two bogeys Thursday.
“Definitely the best start I’ve gotten off to this year, maybe besides American Express,” Scheffler said. “Your scores are definitely going to be lower if you hit the ball on the fairway, but it’s still really, really difficult to make birdies.”
He made one from just inside 40 feet on the par-4 seventh, and another birdie from just inside 30 feet on the par-4 10th. And even the current No. 1 player in the game needed a little help.
Scheffler was in the thick collar of rough to the right of the par-3 17th, facing a chip over a ridge and down toward the hole. However, his golf ball was close enough to a sprinkler cap that he was given free relief, dropped the ball on the fringe and putted it to close range for a par.
Kaymer’s PGA Championship victory more than a decade and a half ago at Wisconsin’s Whistling Straits gave him a lifetime exemption to this major. Kaymer joined the LIV Golf League when it debuted in 2022 and has yet to finish in the top 10 in the few events on the Europe-based DP World Tour he has played since then. He is No. 1,160 in the world ranking. He hasn’t been in the top 10 after one round of any major since the 2020 PGA Championship.
During the champions dinner Tuesday, he said one PGA of America officer asked if he planned to play this week.
“I said, ‘Yeah, that’s why I’m here. I’m not flying from Europe to here to have a New York strip with you guys, you know?'” Kaymer related. “‘Of course I’m playing.’ And that really motivated me.”
Patrick Reed was the only player who made it around Aronimink without a bogey, with the 2018 Masters champion’s two birdies giving him a 68 and a place in the large group with Xander Schauffele and Shane Lowry, who played the two par 5s in 3 under.
Jordan Spieth, lacking only the PGA Championship for the career Grand Slam, bogeyed two of his last three holes — and did not birdie the par-5 ninth, the easiest hole at Aronimink — to join the group at 69 that included fellow multiple major winners Rahm, Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas.
“Just didn’t quite finish the way I wanted to the last three holes, but under par was a good score,” Spieth said. “It was blowing really hard, and it was cold this morning. The course played very, very difficult. It was a good start. I’m going to need to improve on it, I think, each day.”
Rahm, LIV’s 2025 season champion, was headed for another rough start in a major until he holed out for eagle from the 11th fairway, chipped in for birdie on the tough par-3 eighth and shot 69. He was told some people thought scoring would be better in the morning. This surprised him.
“People thought it would be lower?” he replied. “Have you been out there? Have you seen this course?”
McIlroy had the toughest finish. He struggled out of the damp, dense rough. He struggled on the greens. He closed with four straight bogeys and described his round in one word that translates loosely to doo-doo.
No one struggled quite like Bryson DeChambeau, who didn’t make a birdie until he ended on the par-5 ninth. That kept the LIV star from matching his highest score in the PGA Championship. He shot a 76 and now has to work toward avoiding a second straight missed cut in a major.