Shane Lowry whines about PGA Championship setup at Aronimink with highly questionable comments
Shane Lowry was a non-factor in the 2026 PGA Championship, finishing tied for 44th, but made headlines with his criticisms of how Aronimink Golf Club was set up for the year's second major championship.
Lowry was not the lone player who offered critiques of the course setup, but his were by far and away the most outlandish.
After posting an even-par round of 70 in the third round — six shots better than his second-round score — Lowry was asked to share his opinion of Aronimink and how the PGA of America had gone about setting it up over the course of the first three days.
"I think it’s a great golf course, but I think it has been set up pretty poorly," Lowry said following the third round. "And I guess that people sitting at home on the couch can say, ‘Well, people are making birdies, some people are shooting good scores.’ That’s always going to happen, they’re the best players in the world."
While many would call Lowry's initial comments tired, they're fair. As a player in the field competing for millions of dollars and actually having to hit the golf shots and the putts, he has every right to opine about the course being set up "poorly."
But Lowry did not stop there.
Apparently, the best players in the world aren't expected to struggle over putts from 10 feet at a major championship.
"I feel like when you see the best players in the world struggling from 10 feet, you know that there’s something wrong somewhere," Lowry continued. "I think they got it wrong the first two days. It looks like they’ve…it was certainly a little bit easier today, and it looks like that’s kind of maybe a reaction to the first two days, which is not right either, you know.
"We want to play a similar setup every day, you want to play a golf course that gets harder as the week goes on, especially in these major championships."
Lowry may want to play a similar setup every day, which is a bizarre statement to make when we're, again, discussing the best players in the world competing in a major championship. His comments are no different than a student walking into an exam who expects to have a majority of the correct answers.
It's also not a responsibility of the PGA to set up the golf course similarly each day. The course is set up to play defense against the elements as best as they can be predicted, but also against the best players in the world from turning a major championship into a birdie contest.
No course setup is ever going to please every player in the field, but for Lowry to moan about the setup changing over the first three days while he's 12 shots back of the lead reeks of entitlement.
Lowry noted that he was happy that Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler also shared critiques of the setup, but theirs were far milder. Scheffler stated he had never seen more difficult pin placements, while McIlroy claimed that the bunched-up leader board is typically "a sign of not a great setup." Neither mentioned any want for the setup to be similar each day.
McIlroy and Scheffler have also earned the right to share opinions on a course setup with a much longer leash. Scheffler has been the No. 1 player in the world for 192 consecutive weeks, while McIlroy is a six-time major champion and winner of back-to-back Masters.
Lowry hoisted the Claret Jug in 2019, but hasn't won a non-team event on the PGA Tour since 2015.