Someone (Smarty) just pointed out in our forum that Rory is also leaning towards accuracy not mattering too much this week:

I think in this day and age I’m not sure if it’s going to test all aspects of your bag. There’s going to be a lot of – again, as I said, strategy off the tee is pretty nonexistent. It’s, basically, bash driver down there and then figure it out from there, which I think is a lot of these newer – newly renovated – I think about Oak Hill in 2023, here. When these traditional golf courses take a lot of trees out, it makes strategy not as much of a concern off the tee. But the greens are – as I said at the start, the greens are the main focus this week, and I think getting yourself in the right sections of the greens, making sure you leave yourself below the hole for the most part. That’s the key this week.

Full comments from Rory (with timestamp) about Aronimink are here.

I thought about the similarity to Oak Hill this week too, but one important difference is that Aronimink is a bit shorter (Oak Hill’s fairways are also narrower). The lack of length should in theory help short hitters but it seems like players are still going to be bombing drivers as they did in 2018. Typically a short course—like Harbour Town—takes driver out of the hands of longer and/or less accurate players but when there are no hazards or trees there’s no reason to lay back.

Scottie Scheffler has also made multiple comments about the wave of recent restorations—which typically take out trees and widen fairways—removing some of the shot-making required to play the course. As someone who grew up playing a few historic parkland-style courses in the Northeast (Southeast Ontario), I tend to agree.

With all of this said, golf courses are strange and unique. You never really know how it will play until balls are in the air on Thursday morning. And with the comments from players so far this week the PGA of America has a green light to grow the rough up as much as they can.