Preview: PGA Championship 2026 - predictions, course guide, preview, will Scottie Scheffler defend title?

Golf's major season continues on Thursday, as the world's top stars arrive in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania for the US PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club.

A field of 156 players will battle to lift the Wanamaker Trophy, which Scottie Scheffler won for the first time in 2025 at Quail Hollow Club.

PGA Championship preview

While several others have vaulted themselves into golf's top tier in 2026, conversations around likely winners at Aronimink inevitably still start with world number one Scottie Scheffler and world number two Rory McIlroy.

Scheffler heads to Pennsylvania having taken the previous week off, opting not to compete in the Truist Championship at Quail Hollow Club - the site of his 2025 PGA Championship win by five strokes.

While the defending champion has arguably not hit his own heights from 2024 and 2025 - in which he managed eight and six wins respectively, including three majors, he has a win to his name in his 2026 season opener at the American Express and heads into the PGA Championship on the back of three consecutive second-placed finishes at the Masters, RBC Heritage and Cadillac Championship.

McIlroy, meanwhile, comes into the second major of the season aiming to get half way towards what would be a first-ever calendar grand slam, having historically defended his Masters crown last month to earn a sixth major.

He teed it up for the first time since that Augusta glory at the Truist Championship last week, finishing tied for 19th, and will now look to win a seventh major, third Wanamaker Trophy and a first since 2014, having managed two top-10 finishes in the last four attempts.

The world's top two face plenty of competition, though, including from Cameron Young who comes in as one of the world's form players, with three wins and eight other top 10s in his last 16 starts, having won The Players Championship in March and the Cadillac Championship by six strokes in early May.

Likewise, Matt Fitzpatrick has won four times since November and goes in search of a second major championship as one of the favourites.

Plenty of focus has been on LIV Golf in recent weeks, with the shock announcement that the Saudi Public Investment Fund will be cutting funding at the end of the 2026 season, and after failing to contend at the top of the leaderboard in the Masters, two-time major champions Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm will both hope to shut out the noise get back to their best at Aronimink.

While Young may now be regarded as the best current player without a major to his name, several European stars are also in the running to secure a maiden major including Ludvig Aberg, Robert MacIntyre and Tommy Fleetwood, who twice shot the course record of 62 at the 2018 BMW Championship at this course.

Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas and Brooks Koepka all remain in the conversation with either Thomas or Koepka having won five of the last nine Wanamaker Trophies.

Course Guide

The 2026 PGA Championship may be many golf viewers' first look at Aronimink Golf Club, or at least the first since it last hosted a tour event - the 2018 BMW Championship.

The course will play as a 7,394-yard par 70, featuring four par-3s and just two par-5s.

Three of those par-3s will line up at well over 200 yards, while one of the two par-5s is listed on the scorecard at 605 yards, making it far from a guaranteed birdie even for the top stars.

The Donald Ross designed course is defined by its vast and undulating greens, putting an emphasis on players finding the right spots with approach shots or else three-putts will be very much in the equation.

Groups beginning of the front nine will start with four consecutive par-4s between 410 and 460, with only one par-4 on the property coming in at less than 400 yards, suggesting that most will hit driver off the tee at almost every opportunity.

Down the stretch, particularly with the trophy on the line on Sunday, players will have to contend with a tough final four holes, beginning with a 546-yard par-4 and a par-5 followed by a 229-yard par-3 with water danger and another long par-4 to close.

Accuracy will also be at a premium with an eye-catching 180 bunkers on the course for players to avoid, while water only comes into play on the 10th and 17th holes.

Prediction

We say: Cameron Young

While it will take much more for anyone to take Scottie Scheffler's crown as the world's best player in the coming years, Cameron Young certainly has a strong claim to be playing the best golf in the world in 2026.

Scheffler has still been a major threat throughout the season thus far, while McIlroy will be a factor having reaffirmed his focus on major championships after his second Masters win in April, but as was seen in 2025, the Northern Irish star may find it tough to follow up glory at Augusta in the next few months.

Indeed, it is Young who comes in in the hottest form, having won the closest thing to a major at The Players Championship in March before blowing a strong field away at the Cadillac Championship, quickly taking his win tally to three having only got his first on the PGA Tour last August.

Having notably improved his putting to go alongside world-class ability off the tee and on approach, Cameron Young's game is now more than set up to win the biggest titles in golf and we back him to secure a first major at Aronimink Golf Club.