PGA Championship: The Best vs The Rest at Aronimink

The second men’s Major, the PGA Championship, takes place at Aronimink Golf Club and to give golf enthusiasts a flavour of the challenge that the professionals face, the Shot Scope data experts took a closer look at the par 3 17th.

Tipperary is the course’s signature hole, playing anything from around 135 to 230 yards, more than likely the latter for the professionals. The green is protected by bunkers to the right and a water hazard that wraps around the front and left of the green – a good miss here is long of the green.

To understand the challenge that Tipperary presents golfers, we compare the performance of a scratch golfer, an average golfer, and the PGA Tour’s number one ranked Strokes Gained: Approach the Green player for the 2025 season, Scottie Scheffler.

Scheffler vs. The Amateurs

It will come as no surprise that Scheffler was the top ranked player for approach play last year, but what is surprising is that, at this distance (200-225 yards), he was ranked 55th on Tour with an average proximity of 39.8ft (13yds).

From this range, that is undoubtedly close but to give things some perspective, we analysed the average proximity of scratch and average golfers (15hcp) and the data speaks for itself.

Average Proximity 200-225yds

We can see that Scheffler hits it 5x closer to the pin than the average golfer and 2.5x closer than the scratch player. To make things a little bit clearer, we overlaid these distances on a to-scale graphic of the hole:

Essentially, with his average proximity, if Scheffler aims at the middle of the green, he can’t go too far wrong. The same cannot be said for the amateur golfers.

In fact, for scratch and average players alike, regardless of where they aim on the green, there is scope for their tee shot to find itself in a watery grave. To make matters worse, Shot Scope data reveals that at 200-225yds, the amateurs have a significant chance of coming up short:

Miss Short % from 200-225yds

While Scheffler will be eyeing up a birdie opportunity, or par at worst, the amateurs will do well to hit the green, with a scratch player needing an above average shot to hit the green. If you ever felt like the pros play a different game, Tipperary confirms this and underlines it.

How would you play Tipperary?

We can’t all hit the ball like Scottie, but we can use performance data to play smarter.

Through the Shot Scope MyStrategy feature, you can overlay your performance data on Tipperary to see how they would tackle the tough par 3 – would you be able to hit the green or would it be a reload?

Ahead of the PGA Championship, learn how past Champion Rich Beem, uses Shot Scope to continue playing at his very best.

If you want to access invaluable data on your game, check out Shot Scope’s performance tracking technology, which gives you access to over 100 tour level statistics, including Strokes Gained and Handicap Benchmarking with no additional cost or subscription fees.

Play smarter, score lower, and know your game with Shot Scope.

_{Scheffler stats credit: PGA Tour}