{"id":688191,"date":"2026-05-22T22:05:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T22:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/688191\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T22:05:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T22:05:18","slug":"club-pro-posts-pga-championship-scores-after-making-cut-sees-his-handicap-index-drop-australian-golf-digest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/688191\/","title":{"rendered":"Club pro posts PGA Championship scores after making cut, sees his Handicap Index drop \u2013 Australian Golf Digest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[Photo: Michael Reaves]<\/p>\n<p>Ben Kern was the only club pro to make the cut at the 2026 PGA Championship, an incredible accomplishment made even more amazing by the fact that he made more birdies over the first two days at Aronimink than all of the best players in the world. Not bad for a guy whose day job is being the general manager of Hickory Hills Golf Club in Ohio.<\/p>\n<p>But Kern is also probably the only guy who posted four scores from Aronimink for handicap purposes. And, yes, his Handicap Index dropped as a result.<\/p>\n<p>RELATED: <a title=\"View Article\" href=\"https:\/\/www.australiangolfdigest.com.au\/garrick-higgo-austin-gaugert-rules-blunder-late-to-tee-pga-championship-blame\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Garrick Higgo\u2019s caddie takes blame for player\u2019s late arrival at the PGA. But does he deserve it?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Earlier this week, the USGA noted that Kern dutifully entered his scores into America\u2019s GHIN system, including that second-round 67 that went down as a -6.7(!) Scoring Differential.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Ben Kern played in the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PGAChampionship?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@PGAChampionship<\/a>, made the cut, and still remembered to post his scores to GHIN!<\/p>\n<p>Respectfully\u2026 what\u2019s stopping you? \ud83d\ude0f <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/YFQAZi04bN\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/YFQAZi04bN<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 USGA (@USGA) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/USGA\/status\/2057185435504242972?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">May 20, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>That took Kern\u2019s Handicap Index down (or is it up when you\u2019re a plus-handicapper?) to +6.4, meaning he\u2019d be giving at least six strokes to a scratch golfer in a match. And he\u2019ll be giving more strokes to anyone the next time he tees it up in a friendly game at his club.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the most amazing part of all? Kern\u2019s 67 in the PGA Championship isn\u2019t even the best Scoring Differential on his card of the past 20 rounds. In fact, he has two better scores, a -6.9 from April and a -6.8 from last August.<\/p>\n<p>But something tells us he\u2019d pick that second round at the PGA as his best round. Regardless, the dude can clearly play \u2013 especially considering the fact that he has a day job.<\/p>\n<p>    <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[Photo: Michael Reaves] Ben Kern was the only club pro to make the cut at the 2026 PGA&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":688192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[12739,4225,64,63,336057,755,138747,336058,44,11881,118557,85,11766],"class_list":["post-688191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-aronimink-golf-club","tag-article","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ben-kern","tag-golf","tag-golf-digest","tag-handicap-index","tag-news","tag-pga-championship","tag-pga-of-america","tag-sports","tag-usga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}