Min Woo Lee was one shot off the lead after the second round of the 2026 PGA Championship, and Cameron Smith was still hanging around when the leaderboard tightened again on May 17, 2026 at Aronimink Golf Club in Pennsylvania. Alex Smalley led by at least two shots on 6-under-par, with Jon Rahm and Aron Rai tied for second and Rory McIlroy one shot further back on 3-under-par.
The crowd behind Smalley was already large. Smith sat tied with 11 others on 2-under-par after a third-round 68, while Scottie Scheffler and Brooks Koepka were among eight players one stroke back. The us pga leaderboard 2026 had become a test of patience as much as scoring, with 42 players within four strokes of second and no clear breakaway in sight.
Smith’s place on the board carried more weight because of everything that came before it. The 32-year-old had missed the cut at the past six majors, including last month’s Masters, and he arrived at Aronimink after splitting with his lifelong coach, Grant Field, the week before the tournament. He turned to Claude Harmon III after the change, and the decision already looked less like a reset than a rescue. Smith said it was “a terrible, terrible conversation to have,” adding that he had been seeing Field since he was about nine years old and that the coach was also a close friend.
His third round showed why the new setup may be helping. Smith needed 28 putts and still produced a 2-under-par 68, keeping himself in contact with the leaders despite the pressure of a major championship and a coaching change made only days earlier. Lee, meanwhile, offered a reminder that the chase remains very much alive. He made back-to-back bogeys at the third and fourth holes in his third round, then answered with successive birdies at the sixth and seventh. At the par-4 seventh, a 397-yard hole, he drove the green, a shot that helped him steady a round that had briefly started to slip away.
The shape of the tournament now points to a weekend where one hot round could still change everything. Smalley has the lead, but Rahm, Rai, McIlroy, Scheffler, Koepka and Lee are all close enough to turn the final stretch into a sprint, and Smith has shown enough to suggest his run is not finished yet. For a player who had spent the spring looking for a cut line to survive, simply staying in the frame is the first sign the new chapter may last beyond one week.
