Cameron Young and Justin Thomas see the PGA Championship differently because of their fathers

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. (AP) — For a major that has long sought an identity apart from the other three, one element of the PGA Championship stands out. It's one reason two-time champion Justin Thomas and Cameron Young, among the favorites this year, hold it in high regard.

The opening tee shot Thursday at Aronimink will be struck by Braden Shattuck, the PGA director of instruction at Rolling Green Golf Club, just 10 miles (16 kilometers) down the road.

He is among 20 club professionals in the 156-man field. All of them will be back to their day jobs next week, giving lessons and ordering merchandise, not on to the next PGA Tour stop that pays close to $2 million to the winner.

Young's father was one of those professionals.

Dave Young, recently retired as the golf director at Sleepy Hollow in New York, was never among the club pros who qualified for the PGA Championship. But he worked them as a rules official, and was part of the rules committee at the Masters. He played one PGA Tour event, the 1998 Buick Classic in New York.

“The PGA Championship, for our family, is a great week,” Young, now the No. 3 player in the world, said Wednesday. "My dad was a PGA of America professional forever, kind of embraced the whole package of that. ... Unfortunately, he never qualified for it, but he was a very good player and had a number of chances to throughout his career.

“Yeah, it's a cool one for us just given his connection.”

Mike Thomas also recently retired from Harmony Landing in Louisville, Kentucky. Justin Thomas recalls being in the clubhouse at Valhalla at age 7 — his dad was a PGA officer then — when Tiger Woods won the 2000 PGA Championship. He was in the gallery at Valhalla for the 2008 Ryder Cup, high-fiving Phil Mickelson when the Americans won.

Best of all was winning the PGA Championship in Quail Hollow in 2017 and Southern Hills in 2022. That embrace with his father — his grandfather also was a longtime pro — was special.

“I'm well aware everybody feels like it's the fourth major when it comes to all of them,” Thomas said. “It doesn't to me. I couldn't care more of the two I have. It obviously has special meaning to me. I was lucky to have the access I did. I probably got to see and do things a lot of kids didn't. But it motivated me a lot.”

Even with the 20 professionals, who qualified in the national tournament two weeks ago at Bandon Dunes, the field has 136 touring pros that represent by far the strongest field of the four majors.

The PGA Championship likes to hang its hat on field strength, with 97 of the top 100 in the world. What holds it back is the feeling that it doesn't seem much more than a PGA Tour event on some of the courses where it is played and the score that often wins.

Scottie Scheffler won at 11-under 273 at Quail Hollow last year. Xander Schauffele won at 21-under 263 at Valhalla the year before. Single digits under par won three years in a row before that.

“You don't know what you're going to get,” said Harris English, the runner-up last year. “I've played a handful now. It's more like a glorified PGA Tour event. The setup is nothing crazy."

That will be put to the test at Aronimink Golf Club, which hasn't hosted a major since the 1962 PGA Championship won by Gary Player. A restoration project from roughly a decade ago has added some fairway bunkers and removed a lot of trees, creating a more open feel of the course.

The greens have been the biggest topic this week, renowned for the size of the contours that put a premium on distance control with the irons.

“It's very, very classic Northeast,” Young said. “The grasses are very familiar. The rough is pretty thick, but I feel like it’s a nice combination. The fairways, they’re not super narrow, but they are firm enough that if you hit bad shots that land in the fairway, they can get in the rough.”

Key to the week is the weather. The forecast changed in the PGA's favor, with rain expected only Wednesday night into the early part of the opening round, and mostly dry the rest of the week. The faster a course, the harder it gets to control shots.

That has been Scheffler's domain that has kept him atop the world ranking for three years, helped him to victory last year in the PGA Championship and makes him the betting favorite this week.

Rory McIlroy stepped into a shoe that was a half-size bigger and a little wider and had some cushion around the blister on his right pinky toe. He was all better Wednesday for nine holes of practice and doesn't anticipate any problems the rest of the week.

Young and Thomas played the front nine for their final practice session, and they will be in the same group for the opening two rounds. For a windy afternoon of practice, the sight of them embodied one aspect of the PGA Championship. Their fathers were following along, both golf professionals, both of whom taught their sons the game.

On Thursday, Young and Thomas and the strongest field chase after the Wanamaker Trophy.

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

Rory McIlroy, of Northern Ireland, hits from the 13th fairway during a PGA Championship golf tournament practice round at Aronimink Golf Club, Wednesday, May 13, 2026, in Newtown Square, PA. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Scottie Scheffler chips onto the 13th green during a PGA Championship golf tournament practice round at Aronimink Golf Club, Wednesday, May 13, 2026, in Newtown Square, PA. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Cameron Young hits from the first fairway during a PGA Championship golf tournament practice round at Aronimink Golf Club, Wednesday, May 13, 2026, in Newtown Square, PA. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

Justin Thomas hits from the fourth tee during a PGA Championship golf tournament practice round at Aronimink Golf Club, Wednesday, May 13, 2026, in Newtown Square, PA. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Cameron Young reacts tosses his ball on the fourth green during a PGA Championship golf tournament practice round at Aronimink Golf Club, Wednesday, May 13, 2026, in Newtown Square, PA. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

David Venturella, a former executive at a private prison operator, will serve as the acting head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Trump administration says, after the agency's current leader steps down at the end of the month.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said late Tuesday that Venturella would succeed Todd Lyons, who led the agency through much of the administration's tumultuous crackdown on immigration. ICE did not immediately respond to an email seeking additional information Wednesday.

Venturella left the Geo Group in early 2023 and has been working at ICE leading the division that oversees detention contracts, members of Congress wrote in a public letter earlier this year.

At the Geo Group, which houses around one-third of ICE detainees, Venturella served in a number of posts, including executive vice president overseeing corporate development, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. He also oversaw removal operations for ICE in 2011 and 2012 after working for federal contractors, including one that specializes in security clearances and background checks.

Geo has benefited from President Donald Trump’s mass deportation push, garnering big contracts to open three shuttered facilities. Among them was a $1 billion, 15-year deal for a detention center in New Jersey’s largest city.

“Last year was the most successful period for new business wins in our company’s history,” Geo’s CEO George Zoley said during an earnings call last week.

Geo owns and operates 23 ICE detention facilities, with about 26,000 available beds. Zoley also said that ICE’s air transportation subcontract had continued to steadily increase and that it secured a new contract last year for electronic monitoring.

To Silky Shah, executive director of the Detention Watch Network, the hire is a “classic example of the revolving door phenomena.” In a statement, she expressed concern that “Venturella’s intimate knowledge of ICE will likely yield another spike of ICE detention facility openings.”

Venturella will lead ICE at a time when the public mood has soured on Trump’s immigration crackdown, which sent surges of federal immigration officers into American cities to round up immigrants. Those raids sent tensions soaring and prompted clashes between protesters and law enforcement, leading to the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year.

Trump returned to the White House on a promise of mass deportations, and ICE has been a central executor of that vision. Under Lyons’ leadership, the agency used a massive infusion of cash to expand hiring and detention capabilities, and it ramped up arrests to meet demand from the Republican administration.

Federal officials announced Lyons’ departure last month from ICE, which had gotten $75 billion from Congress to fulfill Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

Venturella's appointment comes as DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin settles into his role atop the Cabinet agency overseeing ICE. Mullin has promised to keep his department out of the headlines and has indicated a softer tone on immigration, although he is expected to align with the president's priorities on mass deportations.

One contentious issue confronting DHS now is a plan for converting warehouses into immigrant detention. Conceived while Kristi Noem led the department, the effort has encountered multiple lawsuits and intense community blowback, including in Republican-led states.

The $38.3 billion plan would increase detention capacity to 92,000 beds and mean acquiring eight large-scale facilities, capable of housing 7,000 to 10,000 detainees each, and 16 smaller regional processing centers.

Those, and other sites, were supposed to be running by the end of November. But after Noem’s departure, DHS paused the purchase of new warehouses as it scrutinizes all contracts signed during her tenure.

Last month a judge extended a pause on transforming a massive Maryland warehouse into a processing facility for immigrants, and there are signs that federal officials are scaling back the plans.

This could be good news for Geo. The Florida-based company has about 6,000 idle beds at six company-owned facilities, Zoley said last week.

Zoley had offered a note of skepticism about the warehouse plan during an earlier earnings call in February, noting that renovating a warehouse is “more complicated than you may think.” At that point, he said the company was “cautiously” looking at whether to bid to help operate some of them.

FILE - A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent is seen in Park Ridge, Ill., Sept. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley, File)