Going into a 2026 PGA Championship week at Aronimink Golf Club outside Philadelphia, the Fried Egg Golf Podcast spent more than an hour mapping out the picks, the punching bags and the brand crisis quietly hanging over the second major of the year - and two of the three voices in the room landed on Cam Young as their winner.
Host Andy Johnson, joined by Friday Golf's Kevin Van Vvelenberg and Joseph Lammania, opened with a blunt assessment of the championship's standing in the major hierarchy. Lammania argued that the perception gap between the PGA Championship and the other three majors is no longer in dispute among players themselves, and suggested the PGA of America's most consequential moment of the week may not even involve a player.
Lammania said the most important moment between Monday and Saturday at Aronimink will be the PGA of America press conference, particularly whether new leadership softens the body's previously anti-rollback stance to align more closely with the USGA and R&A. Lammania argued an aligned governing position would do more to elevate the PGA's prestige than any tournament outcome could.
Johnson piled on, saying the PGA has done significant - if not yet irreparable - damage to its own brand through venue selection, leadership turnover and the May calendar slot the tour locked it into. Lammania noted that historic championships keep disappearing from accessible archives, asking pointedly how the body can expect anyone to value its present when it doesn't curate its own history.
The heart of the preview was the case for Cam Young as the third member of golf's modern "big three" alongside Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy. Lammania, long the standard-bearer for what Johnson has called Cam Young propaganda, said it has officially graduated to mainstream analysis.
"This is clear-headed. This is not [propaganda]," Lammania argued, citing Young's six-shot wins at Doral and the Wyndham, his Ryder Cup form, and a major championship pedigree that already includes runner-up finishes at the Open Championship and PGA Championship. Lammania noted that across the past three seasons, only Scheffler, McIlroy and Young have won PGA Tour events by four or more shots.
Johnson said he had crossed over to that camp himself, particularly after Young's recent run, and pointed to the driver as the swing weapon that could decide Aronimink's narrow corridors.
"He has truly become a different player and probably is going to sustain that level and contend all the time in majors," Johnson said. "He has skills, particularly with the driver, that other players do not have, and that is such an enormous weapon."
Van Vvelenberg picked Scheffler, citing the world No. 1's three consecutive runner-up finishes coming in. Both Lammania and Johnson took Cam Young.
The biggest punching bag of the preview was Justin Rose's mid-season switch to McLaren irons. Van Vvelenberg said the timing - mid-major season at age 45, with two majors potentially still in his window - looked baffling. He likened the equipment swap to a guitarist being told an exact replica had been built.
"Every single musician would be like, yeah, it's not quite the same. There's just something that is a little different to me," Van Vvelenberg said. "I don't always buy the argument at this top level that the irons are just the same."
Lammania put it more bluntly, suggesting the move felt like Rose cashing out rather than prioritising majors.
"It feels like somebody who's capitalizing on some good play, exchanging that good play for a big paycheck, and not prioritizing major championships above everything," Lammania said. "Three weeks ago you would have thought Justin Rose has a realistic chance at winning this PGA. Now I don't think too many people are considering him a strong threat and the only variable that's really changed there are the McLaren Irons."
The trio also lingered on John Rahm, who has not won a major since departing for LIV Golf in 2023 and whose record since the move reads as a string of decent finishes without contention. Lammania said he was still inclined to back Rahm against the field, but acknowledged the mental cost of each unsuccessful major continues to compound.
Johnson echoed the concern, saying Rahm's best golf was always fuelled by emotion and a defiant streak, and arguing that the LIV courses and fields no longer test the skill set that made him the hardest player in the world to beat in 2023. Lammania conceded Rahm's resume now sits closer to Xander Schauffele's than to Scheffler's or McIlroy's, even if his peak talent remains plausibly above both.
On the matter of Rickie Fowler as a long-shot major candidate, Johnson made a brief case that Fowler's putter is back near the elite level it occupied in his prime. He stopped short of predicting a Fowler win at Aronimink, but argued the path back to relevance for one of American golf's most marketed faces is more believable than any path remaining for Jordan Spieth or Justin Thomas.
Lammania dismissed Spieth's career grand slam pursuit as a storyline that has effectively died from neglect, saying eight years of non-contention in PGA Championships have drained any buzz it might once have generated.
The consensus position heading into Aronimink: Scheffler is still the world No. 1 regardless of what happens in Philadelphia, but a Cam Young or Rory McIlroy win would scramble the conversation in ways the men's game has not seen in years.