NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pennsylvania, May 14 (Reuters) - The PGA Championship began under mostly cloudy skies on Thursday at Aronimink Golf Club where a trio of high-profile groups will head out early before Scottie Scheffler opens his bid to become the event's first repeat winner since 2019.
World number two Rory McIlroy, who retained his Masters title last month, is among the names going out in the morning wave and scheduled to tee off at 8:40 a.m. ET (1240 GMT) from the par-four 10th hole alongside Jordan
Spieth and Jon Rahm, one of 11 LIV Golf players competing in the year's second major.
For Spieth, whose last win on the PGA Tour came in 2022, a win this week would make him only the seventh man to complete the career grand slam of winning golf's four majors and first since McIlroy joined the exclusive club at the 2025 Masters.
"If I can win one more tournament in my life, it would obviously be this one for that reason," Spieth said this week.
"But the easiest way to do that is to not try to, in a weird way, you know. Just go out and get ready for the first hole, get a good game plan in and attack it the way it needs to be attacked."
Playing one group ahead will be another high-profile threesome featuring 2024 PGA Championship winner Xander Schauffele, five-time major champion Brooks Koepka and LIV Golf's Tyrrell Hatton.
This marks Koepka's second major start since leaving LIV last December. He finished in a share of 12th at the Masters.
SCHEFFLER EYES FIFTH MAJOR TITLE
A further group ahead will be LIV Golf's Bryson DeChambeau, who finished runner-up at the last two editions of the PGA Championship and will set off from the 10th hole in the company of Ludvig Aberg and Rickie Fowler.
Scheffler, who upped his major tally to four with wins at last year's PGA Championship and British Open, is not due to tee off until 2:05 p.m. ET in the day's third-to-last group from the par-four first hole alongside Justin Rose and Matt Fitzpatrick.
World number one Scheffler, who secured a five-stroke win at last year's PGA Championship, has runner-up finishes in his last three starts on the PGA Tour, including at the Masters where the American fell just short of pulling off an unprecedented comeback from 12 strokes down after 36 holes.
Koepka enjoyed a wire-to-wire PGA Championship victory at Bethpage Black in 2019 to join Tiger Woods as the only back-to-back winners of the event since it went to stroke play in 1958.
Among the day's other later starters are Cameron Young, who is riding the wave of his best PGA Tour season to date having already won twice this year, Shane Lowry, Tommy Fleetwood and former champions Collin Morikawa and Justin Thomas.
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in TorontoEditing by Christian Radnedge)
