PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 14, 2026

Sahith Theegala

Aronimink Golf Club

Flash Quotes

THE MODERATOR: Sahith Theegala is with us now at the 108th PGA Championship. Sahith, a 68 for you today. How do you feel about your opening round?

SAHITH THEEGALA: Yeah, very, very pleased with my opening round. It played tough out there. It played a lot tougher than I thought it would. We kind of expected it would be tough with just enough breeze to make it a nuisance.

Then obviously it was chilly. I'm usually one of the guys that takes their jacket off pretty early, and I left it on all round.

But yeah, played really well today. It's awesome to see that the tees weren't moved up too much, and the pins were awesome. I thought perfect major championship pins. It was a lot of fun even though it was really hard and can't take anything for granted. But yeah, it was a fun day.

Q. What was the toughest part for you? Is it the rough around the fairways? Is it around the greens?

SAHITH THEEGALA: Yeah, I think you hit it on the head. Those are the two toughest aspects, it's the rough. I really think it's the rough around the greens. On the fairway it's pretty patchy. You can get some nice lies. Even if you get a bad lie, most of the greens out here, you can kind of run it up.

There's a couple lies where you're not going to be able to hit the green or even get close, but 75 percent of the time, you can at least advance it to the front of the green. So not too big of an issue there, and the fairways are fairly generous even though there's a ton of camber on them.

The rough around the greens, it's impossible to judge. I practiced so much around the greens the last three days. I mean, that was probably the main focus of my practice. It's still a completely total educated guess because it's not only like long or short, but a lot of these blades, I'm not sure what kind of -- I think it's a bluegrass/rye mix right now. I don't know how to describe it, but it's like an unripened banana. It's so sticky.

I haven't played a lot of Northeast golf, so I don't know if this is the normal grass. It kind of threw me for a loop. It kind of squirts both ways for me, like left and right too. Not only is it a distance problem, it's a left and right thing. You can't see the grain because it always kind of sticks up in the air.

It's really hard. You'd rather be in a greenside bunker all day. It's a fun challenge, but it's really tough to get up-and-down out of the rough.

Q. I was thinking you might be the only player today that says that the pins were awesome, no?

SAHITH THEEGALA: Yeah.

Q. What makes you enjoy the challenge so much?

SAHITH THEEGALA: I grew up in California, so I really -- I played very little Northeast golf. Just the green contours and the structures and where you can put some of these pins is so, so cool. Obviously there's a lot of slope on the greens, and you can't really put them next to big slopes.

I think they did a great job today of putting a lot of the pins kind of on these little ridges and little humps. It's kind of comparable to what they do at St Andrews. When I played in '22, they put a lot of pins on the knobs to where like it's really flat right where the pin is, like dead flat, but both sides of the hole kind of go away, kind of Pinehurst-esque.

It was a good challenge. I thought it was fair. You can always miss to one side of the green where you have an easy putt or easy up-and-down if you have a bad lie in the rough.

Yeah, it's a major championship. It's been a while since I've been healthy for once, so it's nice to get kicked around a lot. Like I said, tomorrow's a new day. Who knows, it might kick me really bad. Yeah, I really enjoyed the pins. It's a different challenge.

Q. With your injury history and everything, I would imagine it's hard not to be overly cautious sometimes or whatever you want to say. When you're playing at a thick rough and stuff like that, does that enter the equation? Is it hard not to just kind of be overly cautious or whatever?

SAHITH THEEGALA: I think -- you know, it's definitely a thing that I think about. At least this week I actually haven't really thought about it because I've been healthy, which is awesome. I've never -- luckily, I've never hurt myself coming out of this rough or out of any rough.

This kind of rough, it feels like you have a chance. So I can see if you go really hard at one and something feels wrong, that's a problem. Obviously last year I had that happen, just didn't feel -- I didn't have the strength to get out of the rough. I just wasn't operating at a hundred percent.

So I feel like I'm operating at a hundred percent, and for better or for worse, if I feel like I have a shot at it, I'm going to go ahead and hit it. I've been, like I said, very lucky before last year with injuries. I didn't have a serious injury at all since college.

Golf is sneaky. There's always something kind of off. So to be in a spot right now where everything feels full go is awesome, so I'm going to play that way for sure.