Two New Zealanders are in the field at the PGA Championship, with Ryan Fox and Daniel Hillier teeing off in the early hours of Friday morning NZT at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania. The second men’s golf major of 2026 runs from May 14 to 17, and the Kiwi pair will be on the course before most of the country wakes up.
Fox is first up, with his opening round under way from 12.35am NZT on Friday. The 39-year-old Aucklander is playing his eighth PGA Championship and is grouped with American PGA instructor Ryan Lenahan and Japan’s Kazuki Higa, who featured at the ISPS Handa New Zealand Open at Millbrook in March. Hillier follows six minutes later at 12.41am NZT, starting from the 10th tee alongside Americans Max McGreevy and Ryan Vermeer in a group that trails the marquee threesome of Masters champion Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth and Jon Rahm. The proximity to that group all but guarantees Hillier some television time on what is his first major as a professional in the United States.
Aronimink, designed by Donald Ross and tucked into the Philadelphia suburbs, is stretched to 6,761 metres for the championship and is playing as a par 70. The course was the venue for the BMW Championship in 2018 and 2020 and is regarded as one of the most demanding ball-striking tests on the rota, with thick rough, severe greenside contours and several holes that ask for serious power off the tee.
Fox is the more experienced of the two on the major stage. He finished tied seventh at the Genesis Invitational in February for his first top 10 on the PGA Tour this season, with back-to-back tied 24th finishes at the WM Phoenix Open and AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am earlier in the year. He missed his Players Championship start after surgery to remove kidney stones and then missed the cut at the Masters in April, but has since worked his way back into competition. He sits in the mid-50s on the FedEx Cup standings and remains the highest-ranked New Zealander on the men’s world list.
Hillier, 27, plays his maiden PGA Championship after qualifying through a special invitation extended to players inside the top 100 in the world. He earned that ranking through a strong start to 2026 that included a runner-up finish at the Dubai Invitational in January and a breakthrough win at the New Zealand Open at Millbrook Resort in March, where he finished one stroke clear in front of family and friends from the Hutt Valley. His world ranking has hovered between 92 and 96 in the weeks since. Hillier has played in majors before, including the 2019 US Open at Pebble Beach as an amateur, where he missed the cut. This week is his first major as a professional in the United States.
Defending champion Scottie Scheffler heads the field after his runaway win at Quail Hollow last year, but much of the early conversation at Aronimink has centred on McIlroy. The Northern Irishman ended his major drought with a victory at Augusta in April to complete the career grand slam, and a win this week would make him the first player since Jack Nicklaus in 1975 to lift the green jacket and the Wanamaker Trophy in the same year. Scheffler, McIlroy, Rahm, Xander Schauffele and Justin Thomas head the betting markets, with the soft, scoreable layout meaning depth is as deep as any major outside the Masters.
The 2026 PGA Championship is the second of four men’s majors this year, sitting between the Masters in April and the US Open at Shinnecock Hills in June. Aronimink steps into the rotation after the 2025 edition at Quail Hollow in North Carolina, where Scheffler ran away with the title by five strokes. The Wanamaker Trophy goes home with the winner on Sunday afternoon in New York time, which is the small hours of Monday morning in New Zealand.
For Fox, a strong major showing would consolidate a quietly steady return to form after his health setback and keep him in the picture for one of New Zealand’s two Olympic golf places in Los Angeles in 2028. For Hillier, simply teeing it up at a major in the United States is a milestone, and a top-50 finish would push him further into the world top 80 and unlock a much wider PGA Tour schedule for the rest of the year. Both will be back out for round two on Friday afternoon US time, which translates to Friday night and the small hours of Saturday in New Zealand. The cut for the weekend traditionally falls around the top 65 and ties at Aronimink.
Sky Sport is carrying live coverage in New Zealand across all four rounds, with the Friday and Saturday afternoon telecasts in the United States the highlight of the local viewing window. McIlroy’s chase of the calendar grand slam is the global story, but for Kiwi viewers tuning in overnight, it is the two New Zealand bags walking the fairways at one of the toughest classic courses in the United States that will hold the most interest.
What do you think Ryan Fox and Daniel Hillier can achieve at Aronimink this week, and is it the right time for a New Zealander to push for a major top 10? Leave a comment below and let us know.
See also NZ Golf Courses Explorer β Newswire’s interactive map of every New Zealand golf course.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job π
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