Birdies have been hard to come by so far at this PGA Championship.
Through 36 holes, Aronimink has not yielded double-digit birdies to a single player. Four players have carded nine birdies – Chris Gotterup, Aaron Rai, Alex Smally and easily the most surprising of the bunch, Ben Kern.
“That’s wild,” said Kern, shocked himself.
Kern is a 41-year-old, Class A-13 PGA professional who grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and played collegiately at Kansas State. He turned pro in 2007, chased pro golf for a handful of years and currently works as the general manager of Hickory Hills Golf Club in Grove City, Ohio. This is his third PGA Championship appearance, his previous two starts coming in 2023 at Oak Hill (MC) and 2018 at Bellerive (T-42).
Aside from the fact that Kern, 1 over through two rounds at The Mink, is now 2 for 3 in playing the weekend at PGAs, it’s clear that he’s not like many club pros. For starters, he’s a big dude, listed at 6 feet, 1 inch, and 275 pounds. He used to have a big beard, too, but he shaved it. Then there are the tattoos, including a sleeve on his left arm.
Having spent his formative years in the desert, Kern used to just “hit the ball to the moon.” Once he got to college, he knew his style of play needed to change.
“I like going low, going high, left, both directions,” Kern said. “I have fun kind of picking apart the wind and hitting golf shots.”
That’s served him well so far at a blustery Aronimink. Following an opening 74, Kern had to pick himself back up for Friday’s morning round. He was even par through nine holes, highlighted by a 52-foot birdie over a spine at the 218-yard 17th hole, before rattling off four birdies in a five-hole span.
Kern wedged to a few feet at the par-4 first and tapped in the birdie putt there. He followed by thinning an 8-iron from a fairway bunker to about 9 feet above the hole at the par-4 second, but managed to roll that one in, too. At the par-4 third, he got a teach from Russell Henley and canned a 21-footer. Then at the par-3 fifth, he launched another 8-iron, this time from 187 yards to 10 feet to set up his sixth and final birdie of the day.
“I think any birdie around this place, I don’t care what hole it is, it’s nice,” Kern said. “But to go on that run, 1, 2, 3, slip up a little bit on 4 (which he bogeyed), and then get right back on track on 5 allowed me to just keep cruising to finish my round…
“I hung my head high yesterday, and I had a goal today and I surpassed it.”
Kern tries to play with Hickory’s members at least once a week, which is why he also keeps a handicap. Right now, he’s a plus-6, he says.
“It’s going to absolutely destroy my handicap,” Kern said of Friday’s 67. “But that’s okay. That’s what it’s for.”