NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. (AP) — A brief look at the PGA Championship going into the first round Thursday at Aronimink Golf Club:
Event: 108th PGA Championship.
Course: Aronimink Golf Club. Yardage: 7,394. Par: 70.
Prize fund: To be announced on Saturday ($19 million in 2025, with $3.24 million to the winner).
Defending champion: Scottie Scheffler.
Strongest field: The PGA Championship has 97 of the top 100 in the world ranking. Missing is Jake Knapp at No. 37 (thumb injury), Lucas Herbert at No. 89 and Shaun Norris at No. 95. Herbert and Norris moved into the top 100 after the field had been filled.
Rory's little toe: Rory McIlroy could play only three holes Tuesday because of a blister under the nail of his right pinkie toe. He played nine holes Wednesday and said he was fine after some padding around the toe and a wider, longer shoe.
Grand Slam pursuit: Jordan Spieth needs to win the PGA Championship to complete the career Grand Slam. Masters champion McIlroy goes after the second leg of the calendar slam.
Aronimink winners: Keegan Bradley (2018 BMW Championship), Nick Watney (2011 AT&T National), Justin Rose (2010 AT&T National), Gary Player (1962 PGA Championship.
Key statistic: Americans have won the last 10 times in the PGA Championship, the longest active streak among majors.
Noteworthy: The last nine PGA champions have won multiple majors.
Key tee times Thursday: Scottie Scheffler, Matt Fitzpatrick, Justin Rose (2:05 p.m.); Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Jon Rahm (8:40 a.m.); Bryson DeChambeau, Ludvig Aberg, Rickie Fowler (8:29 a.m.).
Television: Thursday-Friday, 7 a.m. to noon (ESPN+), noon to 7 p.m. (ESPN); Saturday-Sunday, 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. (ESPN+), 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. (ESPN), 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. (CBS and Paramount+).
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
Max Homa hits from the first 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)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee is scheduled to execute Tony Carruthers on Thursday after his attorneys questioned whether the state's lethal injection drugs had expired and courts denied requests to test DNA and fingerprint evidence or to deem him mentally incompetent.
Carruthers, 57, was sentenced to death after being found guilty of the 1994 kidnappings and murders of Marcellos Anderson; his mother, Delois Anderson; and Frederick Tucker. He was forced to represent himself at trial after repeatedly complaining about court-appointed attorneys and threatening to harm several of them.
There was no physical evidence tying Carruthers to the killings, and he was convicted primarily on the basis of testimony from people who claimed to have heard him confess to or discuss the crimes.
They include a man who was later revealed to be a police informant and told media he was paid for his testimony. A co-defendant, James Montgomery, was originally sentenced to death along with Carruthers but was later resentenced and released from prison in 2015, according to court filings.
Authorities said Marcellos Anderson was a drug dealer, and Carruthers was trying to take over the illegal drug trade in their Memphis neighborhood. Carruthers' attorneys have said their client's “paranoia and delusions” prevented him from being able to cooperate with court-appointed counsel, but the judge viewed this behavior as willful.
The Tennessee Supreme Court said on appeal that Carruthers’ actions before the trial jury were offensive and self-destructive but the situation in which he found himself was one of his own making. If the execution goes forward as scheduled, Carruthers will be the first person to be executed after being forced to represent himself in more than a century, according to a clemency petition to Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee.
In the petition, Carruthers' attorneys argue that the reason he was sentenced to death was because a medical examiner testified the victims were buried alive, going into excruciating detail for the jury. He later withdrew that claim and subsequent experts have said it was false.
Carruthers' attorneys have tried to show that he is incompetent to be executed. They claim in court filings that Carruthers believes the government is bluffing about executing him in order to coerce him into accepting a plea deal that exists only in his mind. That way, Carruthers believes, the government can avoid paying him what he thinks are millions of dollars it owes him. He is convinced that his own attorneys are part of a conspiracy against him and refuses to even speak with them, according to court filings.
The number of executions in the U.S. surged from 25 in 2024 to 47 last year, driven by a sharp increase in Florida. That state carried out 19 executions in 2025, up from one the previous year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. So far this year, four states have executed 13 people, and 11 other executions are scheduled including one Thursday evening in Florida.
It’s not unusual to see several executions over a short period of time. Last year, four people were executed over three days in March in Oklahoma, Florida, Louisiana and Arizona. Another five people were executed over a week in October in Arizona, Mississippi, Missouri, Florida and Indiana, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Tennessee began a new round of executions last year after a three-year pause following the discovery that the state was not properly testing lethal injection drugs for purity and potency.
An independent review later found that none of the drugs prepared for the seven inmates executed in Tennessee since 2018 had been fully tested. The state attorney general’s office also conceded in court that two of the people most responsible for overseeing Tennessee’s lethal injection drugs “ incorrectly testified ” under oath that officials were testing the chemicals as required.
This Tennessee Department of Correction photo shows inmate Tony Carruthers. (Tennessee Department of Correction via AP)
