Philadelphia does not separate sport from identity. Walk into Eagles’ country as a Cowboys fan, and the city has something to say. It does not matter whether you’re holding a putter or a football. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler got a taste of that during the practice round ahead of the 2026 PGA Championship. As he walked the greens, fans in the galleries took time to engage in a fun banter with him.

“Dallas sucks, Scottie. We’re gonna smash you on Thanksgiving.” And then came the punchline for everyone around. “He’s a Cowboys fan.”

As the fans chirped from the benches with loud laughter, Scottie Scheffler looked back at the gallery, grinned, and laughed along. The banter was certainly friendly, but the needle of the joke is sharp.

Earlier, Scottie was asked if he had a message for Philadelphia fans by CBS Sports’ Colt Knost. After he initially said “No,” the player requested:

“Please, please stop beating our football team so bad.”

For anyone without a context, Dallas finished the 2025 NFL season at 7-9-1, missing the playoffs for the second year straight. To no one’s surprise, Philadelphia was the team that ended their postseason hopes, beating the Commanders in Week 16 to knock the Cowboys out of contention.

The losing season gave further grief to Scheffler, who has been a Cowboys fan since his childhood. He grew up in Dallas after moving there from New Jersey at the age of six. Scheffler was born in June 1996, the same year the Cowboys last won the Super Bowl. For Eagles fans packed into the gallery at Aronimink, that combination of a bad season and a rivalry loss makes Scheffler an easy and willing target.

The timing of the new schedule also adds another angle to the heckling Scheffler faces. The Cowboys are scheduled to host the Eagles on Thanksgiving 2026, the first time these two sides will meet on a holiday since 2014. The Eagles secured a 33-10 win on that occasion. So the banter could be moving quickly to rivalry before anybody knows.

That said, this is not the first time Philly’s Gallery has tested the temperature at a major. Even before the 2026 PGA Championship began, there were already questions about whether the crowd would echo the rowdy behavior that marked the Ryder Cup last fall. However, Scheffler, to his credit, did not flinch, and he remains focused on the golf course.

Scheffler arrives at Aronimink Golf Club with Unfinished Business.

Heckling may be the lightest thing Scheffler is carrying into this week. He arrives at Aronimink as defending PGA champion, chasing something that only Tiger Woods and Brooks Koepka have managed in the stroke play era, which is back-to-back Wannamaker Trophy. Woods did it in 1999 and 2000, and again in 2006-2007. Koepka won it in 2018 and 2019.

As for Scheffler, he has maintained a good stance. He won by five shots at Quail Hollow last year, and he arrives at Aronimink looking to do it again.

The only catch is that he has never played on this course before. Aronimink last appeared on the PGA Tour calendar at the 2018 BMW Championship, and Scheffler was not in that field. He has been working on practice rounds alone this week and was straightforward about what makes it difficult.

“The fairways are hard to hold, and the greens have a lot of slope and a lot of pitch to them,” he said. “It’s going to be challenging.”

The greens are where the course will do its damage, and getting the ball into the right section of the green matters more than almost anything else here. That puts extra pressure on Scheffler’s iron play, which dipped earlier in 2026 and has only recently started to look like itself again.

The dip mentioned connects to his recent run of close finishes. He lost to Rory McIlroy at the Masters, then fell in a playoff to Matt Fitzpatrick at the RBC Heritage, and then finished six shots behind Cameron Young at Dural. Scheffler still ranks world number one, but has not finished outside the top 30 since August 2024, and not to mention, no wins since January.

At the press conference on Tuesday, Scheffler commented on his season and still maintains a positive outlook.

“Finishing second hurts, but there’s a lot less to clean up when you’re finishing second than when you’re finishing 30th.”

While it is his first time at Aronimink, Scheffler can elevate when the pressure is on, especially with the Philly fans targeting him.  His 2026 campaign has been mixed so far in terms of results, but he could win at Aronimink and remind fans of his real ability