News

Playing Away – Day One

Published

19 years ago

Jul 23, 2007

If you read the last article (and if not why not?!) you’ll know that myself and 3 of my friends took the rite of passage that is ‘the first foreign golf trip’. Not only did we decide to fight our way from one country to another while carrying enormous travel bags but we decided that if we were going to do this, we would do this in style. So when we were deciding where to go, the requirements were that it was a course that was appropriate to our high class and demanding requirements – a 5 star hotel with at least one decent golf course attached to it, a swimming pool with a bar…actually that was pretty much it.

Penina in southern Portugal was the chosen destination. A beautiful hotel with a 6900 yard championship course designed by Henry Cotton (winner of 6 majors) as well as a 9 hole resort course and rated as one of the Top 100 courses in Europe. We had booked in a double loop of the resort course for the first day before we would chance our arm on the championship course on days 2 and 3. We figured that these things are best not rushed and wanted to saviour the moment of teeing off on such a wonderful course and besides, we didn’t want to make complete arses of ourselves. At least not straight away.

At this point I feel I should introduce who I managed to convince to come on the trip.

Alex: the cool as a cucumber airline pilot. Much loved by ladies for his tall, dark and handsome looks as for the fact that since the dawn of time he has been known by the nickname ‘Kiddie’. Perpetually jet-lagged, his perfect holiday consists of sleeping, golf, sleeping and chatting up beautiful women, but then again, whose doesn’t? Fights a hook.

Henry: 6ft 5in of flame haired West Country farm boy with arms like a gorilla. Known to all but his mother and fiancé as ‘Homer’ (Seriously, what else are you going to call someone who has the initials H J Simpson). He has played sport for his country and has hollow legs where alcohol is involved. Fights a slice and people who don’t think cider is as good as fine wine.

William: Billy to his mates. Billy is the epitome of the All-American blonde haired, blue eyed boy. Cosmopolitan, having lived in the UK and Germany as well as all across the US, he has a high powered job doing some sort of marketing to billion dollar companies that would make him easy to hate if it weren’t for that fact that a) he’s possibly the most personable man in the world and b) is completely unable to chat up girls. Fights a hook-slice (I don’t know how he hits a shot that appears to defy the laws of physics but if you play a round with him you will see it at least once every couple of holes).

Me: the poor sad golf obsessive that convinced them that this would be a good thing to do. Fights the urge to play golf every single waking moment of the day.

The resort course was a simple layout and not overly difficult, so perfect for us. The first round was pretty relaxed. With no one in front or behind us, we could play our normal game. We could take as long as we liked over our shots, we could hit extra balls if we duffed our shots (we needed the practise) and importantly hoot, holler and yell at each other. The normal friendly abuse and banter that makes a social round so much fun.

The scoring was nothing to write home about but tramping around in an orange grove while the sun gently beats down is certainly one of the most pleasant ways to look for a lost ball. Only Homer was having any real difficulty with the course because he was reading the distance markers in yards rather than the metres they were really measured in. We were having far too much fun watching him lashing at the ball to bother telling him. Trust me, when a farmer scythes at the ball, he really means it. The ball, large lumps of sod and occasionally reasonably sized rocks would go flying towards the hole as he yet again completely under-clubbed.

Occasionally he would flush the ball out of the middle which would result in some spectacular shots. The best one of the day was all of 270 yards right down the very centre of the fairway. Not unusually impressive with a driver or a 3 wood but this was with a 25 degree hybrid and not an expensive super-duper ‘Tour-only’ hybrid but one that he appeared to have got from a cereal box. As we watched with mouths agape, Homer stepped down from the tee box. ‘Roight. That’s how you do it down the farm’ he said, with a look of ill-concealed delight, as if he would normally expect to hit this shot and couldn’t understand why he hadn’t been doing it all morning. As someone who wrestles with farm equipment he’s a big lad but all I could think was ‘He’s a fruit farmer…how much subduing do raspberries need?’.

After the round, we gathered for some beers around the pool so we could rehash our round, lie about how badly we had played in comparison to how we play normally and discuss how we were going to play the Championship course the next day. As I was the only person to actually belong to a club, the others decided that on all holes where people would be watching, I would tee off first in the misguided belief that I would be able to get a good tee shot off and so convince the staff that we weren’t complete hackers. Which in my opinion was like painting ‘Fido’ on an elephant to convince people it’s a Chihuahua. As it we had an early tee time we all solemnly agreed that we would take it easy that night so that we would be prepared for the stern test ahead.

News

WITB Time Machine: Phil Mickelson’s winning WITB, 2021 PGA Championship

Published

1 day ago

May 13, 2026

GolfWRX Staff

Phil Mickelson made history at the 2021 PGA Championship on Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course. At 50, he became the oldest player to win a major, breaking Julius Boros’s record. Starting the final round with a slim lead, Lefty faced tough competition from Brooks Koepka and Louis Oosthuizen. He pulled ahead with key birdies and a standout 366-yard drive on the 16th hole. Finishing 6 under par and two shots ahead, Mickelson claimed his sixth major and second PGA Championship. Many saw his win as an inspiring comeback, showing that experience and determination can still lead to victory in professional golf — and, sometimes, age is just a number.

Driver: Callaway Epic Speed Triple Diamond (6 degrees @5.5 , green dot cog)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 6 X (47.9 inches)

2-wood: TaylorMade “Original One” Mini Driver (11.5 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 7 X

4-wood (Sunday only): Callaway Mavrik Sub Zero (16.5 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Blue 8 X

Irons: Callaway X Forged UT (16) (Thursday-Saturday), Callaway X21 UT Proto (19 degrees @20.5, 25), Callaway Apex MB ‘21 (small groove) (6-PW)
Shafts: (16) MCA MMT 105 TX, KBS Tour V 125 S+

Wedges: Callaway PM Grind ’19 “Raw” (52-12@50, 55-12, 60-10)
Shafts: KBS Tour V 125 S+

Putter: Odyssey Milled Blade “Phil Mickelson”
Grip: SuperStroke Pistol GT Tour

Ball: Callaway Chrome Soft X (Triple Track)

Grips: Golf Pride MCC

More photos of Phil Mickelson’s WITB here.

News

2026 PGA Championship betting odds

Published

2 days ago

May 12, 2026

Gianni Magliocco

Scottie Scheffler leads the betting ahead of the second major championship of the year, with the World Number One a +345 favorite to get his hands on a second PGA Championship.

Rory McIlroy who won the Masters back in April is a +800 shot to complete half of the calendar slam at Aronimink Golf Club this week, while Jordan Spieth can be backed at +5900 to become a career grand slam winner.

Here is the full betting board for the 2026 PGA Championship courtesy of DraftKings.

Scottie Scheffler +345 – (Check 0ut his WITB here)

Rory McIlroy +800 – (Check out his WITB here)

Jon Rahm +1300
Cameron Young +1500
Bryson DeChambeau +1700
Xander Schauffele +1850
Matt Fitzpatrick +1950
Ludvig Aberg +2000
Tommy Fleetwood +2600
Collin Morikawa +3500
Brooks Koepka +3900
Justin Rose +4300
Russell Henley +4600
Si Woo Kim +4700
Justin Thomas +4800
Robert MacIntyre +5300
Patrick Cantlay +5300
Viktor Hovland +5400
Tyrrell Hatton +5500
Jordan Spieth +5900
Sam Burns +6000
Hideki Matsuyama +6200
Adam Scott +6400
Rickie Fowler +7000
Chris Gotterup +7400
Patrick Reed +7400
Min Woo Lee +7800
Ben Griffin +8000
Sepp Straka +8400
Shane Lowry +9000
Akshay Bhatia +9200
Maverick McNealy +9200
Joaquin Niemann +9200
Jake Knapp +9200
Jason Day +9600
Kurt Kitayama +10000
J.J. Spaun +10000
Harris English +10500
Nicolai Hojgaard +11000
Gary Woodland +11000
David Puig +11000
Michael Thorbjornsen +12000
Jacob Bridgeman +12000
Keegan Bradley +12500
Corey Conners +14000
Alex Fitzpatrick +15000
Sungjae Im +15500
Sahith Theegala +15500
Harry Hall +15500
Alex Noren +16000
Thomas Detry +16500
Marco Penge +16500
Kristoffer Reitan +17000
Alex Smalley +17000
Wyndham Clark +17500
Sam Stevens +17500
Keith Mitchell +17500
Daniel Berger +18500
Ryan Gerard +20000
Nick Taylor +20000
Rasmus Hojgaard +21000
Dustin Johnson +21000
Pierceson Coody +23000
Aaron Rai +24000
Jordan Smith +24000
Angel Ayora +24000
Bud Cauley +25000
Matt McCarty +26000
Jayden Schaper +26000
Brian Harman +27000
Taylor Pendrith +27000
Ryan Fox +27000
J.T. Poston +27000
Cameron Smith +29000
Ryo Hisatsune +29000
Michael Kim +29000
Max Homa +29000
Denny McCarthy +29000
Tom McKibbin +30000
Rico Hoey +32000
Matt Wallace +32500
Ricky Castillo +33000
Haotong Li +33000
Michael Brennan +34000
Max Greyserman +36000
Stephan Jaeger +37500
Christiaan Bezuidenhout +37500
Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen +39000
Aldrich Potgieter +40000
Andrew Novak +42000
Patrick Rodgers +42500
Daniel Hillier +42500
Max McGreevy +46000
Billy Horschel +48000
Chris Kirk +48000
Ian Holt +49000
Casey Jarvis +49000
William Mouw +50000
Steven Fisk +50000
John Parry +50000
Nico Echavarria +52500
Garrick Higgo +52500
John Keefer+55000
Matthias Schmid +57500
Austin Smotherman +57500
Sami Valimaki +60000
Andrew Putnam +60000
Lucas Glover +62500
Daniel Brown +62500
Jhonattan Vegas +75000
Emiliano Grillo +80000
Mikael Lindberg +85000
Adrien Saddier +100000
Bernd Wiesberger +100000
Elvis Smylie +110000
Stewart Cink +130000
Kota Kaneko +130000
David Lipsky +150000
Chandler Blanchet +150000
Andy Sullivan +150000
Joe Highsmith +180000
Adam Schenk +200000
Travis Smyth +200000
Davis Riley +225000
Martin Kaymer +400000
Brian Campbell +400000
Padraig Harrington +450000
Kazuki Higa +450000
Jordan Gumberg +450000
Ryan Vermeer +500000
Austin Hurt +500000
Tyler Collet +500000
Timothy Wiseman +500000
Shaun Micheel +500000
Y.E. Yang +500000
Michael Block+500000
Mark Geddes+500000
Luke Donald+500000
Bryce Fisher+500000
Jimmy Walker +500000
Jason Dufner +500000
Jesse Droemer +500000
Jared Jones +500000
Garrett Sapp +500000
Francisco Bide +500000
Zach Haynes +500000
Paul McClure+500000
Derek Berg +500000
Chris Gabriele +500000
Braden Shattuck +500000
Ben Polland +500000
Ben Kern +50000

Tour Photo Galleries

Photos from the 2026 PGA Championship

Published

3 days ago

May 11, 2026

GolfWRX Staff

GolfWRX is on site for the second major of 2026: The PGA Championship from Aronimink in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.

The tournament’s location, just outside Philadelphia, and its status as a major championship mean GolfWRXers are in for a treat: WITBs from a strong field, custom gear celebrating the PGA Championship, and the rich culture of the City of Brotherly Love — we have noted a relative absence of cheesesteak-themed items thus far this week, but most of the rest of the usual suspects are well represented.

Check out links to all our photos below.