Players rave about it when they come every year, but for the course architecture heads and the peripheral golf community, the glass is very much half empty on this week’s PGA Championship venue. So why is the divide so stark?

When Jim Barnes claimed the inaugural PGA Championship title in 1916, he earned a prize money payout of $500 from an overall purse of $2,580. Yes, times have changed. The PGA of America announced Saturday that the players in the 2025 PGA Championship field at Quail Hollow were playing for a record $19 million,