Padraig Harrington will be hopeful of getting into contention to win the fourth major championship of his career next week at the ripe old age of 54.
Harrington will tee it up at Aronimink at the PGA Championship next Thursday, looking to win the Wanamaker Trophy for the second time.
The Irishman may well be past his prime but he will have full belief that he can contend next week in Pennsylvania.
Padraig Harrington still hits the ball plenty far enough, and he possesses one of the best short games in the business.
So it should surprise nobody if he is competitive at the very least next week at the PGA Championship.
However, is Aronimink suited to Harrington’s skillset?
Padraig Harrington’s take on Aronimink ahead of PGA Championship
Harrington took to his X account on Tuesday and delivered his take on Aronimink as a golf course, after playing some practice rounds ahead of the PGA Championship.
“Two days early practice ahead of the PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club,“ Harrington said.
“Course is in perfect condition.
“Reasonably wide fairways but firm, very fast and sloping. Definitely difficult to hit on some of doglegs with slopes.
“With the exception of a few holes surprisingly not that long, although there’s some length in a couple of the par 3s.
“The rough is extremely gnarly but you can pull a good lie. Generally you’ll see a lot of guys bombing drivers to leave shorter shots out of the rough.
“The greens are definitely the difficulty of the course, a lot of slopes and angles to them.
“Plenty of pin positions that become unplayable if out of position. A good old fashioned test.“
The last sentence means we could be in for a seriously exciting PGA Championship.
The recipe for success at the PGA Championship
Should the PGA of America decide to trick things up, the players could be in for a very tough week at Aronimink.
The golf course is a par 70 and stretches out to just under 7,400 yards, so it’s by no means a short layout.
However, the main requirement for players in order to achieve success will be to leave themselves on the correct side of pins.
Players missing on the wrong side of the greens and short-siding themselves could quickly end their hopes of winning the PGA Championship.
Padraig Harrington has given himself somewhat of a leg-up by heading to Aronimink early to play some practice rounds a week ahead of the PGA Championship.
Whether that will enable him to actually contend or not remains to be seen, though.
