In-form Mansell looking to defend English PGA Championship at Bowood

Since 2019, Bowood Golf Course and Academy in Wiltshire has been the proud host venue of the English PGA Championship.

144 players will be teeing it up, competing for the lion’s share of the £30,000 prize fund, and 2025 champion Ashley Mansell will hope he can carry his superb recent form into the event in this July.

Mansell of Clevedon Golf Club took the title 12 months ago with a narrow one-shot victory over Ben Amor of Ogbourne Downs Golf Club. Mansell’s final-round score of 2-under-par was enough to seal victory.

“I felt quite in control of my game all week at Bowood, and I know Bowood well, so that helps,” Mansell said.

“I had a couple of hiccups mid-round with a couple of shots, but recovered. I think I was three shots clear playing the last. I made a bad swing on my second shot, hit it into the bunker left, and had the most horrendous lie in the world, and stance. I got it out of the bunker, and I knew after my first putt, I had two putts from about eight foot away.

“I took the two putts, and unfortunately finished with a double, but it doesn't matter, whatever you have to make to win was going through my mind, and that’s what was going through my mind at Slaley Hall as well.

“On 18, the same thing was, you never really want to make a bogey as a golfer or a double bogey, but if it's enough to win the tournament, it doesn't matter.”

Pictured: Ashley Mansell

Mansell referred to his recent win at the PGA Professional Championship at Slaley Hall. He carded a 69 on the last day to pip Scotland’s Gavin Hay by a couple of strokes.

“It's amazing. All the guys have been very congratulatory on both counts, last year and on winning this year. Loads of lads that play in our PGA events are top-class sportsmen on and off the golf course. We all get on well, and it's always good to see someone you like and know win an event, so it's nice to have people congratulate me after the event.”

So far, 2026 has been a year to remember for Mansell. He won the Carlsberg Britvic Cornish Festival at Trevose in April, then the Weymouth Pro-Am at the end of May. You could also mention the nine other top 5 finishes as well.

Mansell puts his form down to treating competitive golf as important, but also something he looks to lose no sleep over.

“Golf is not the be-all-and-end-all competition wise for me, as work is my main income,” he added.

“If I play well, it's great, and if I don't play well, then I've got to shrug my shoulders and take the rough with the smooth. I've been a lot more laid back this year with playing. I’ve got a little bit wiser as I've got older, in a way, to manage my game around a golf course.”

Ben Amor has also enjoyed a season of success in 2026. He shared the winner’s cheque at the Ogbourne Downs Pro-Am in April and won the Broome Manor Pro-Am in May. He also broke the top 10 of the recent PGA Professional Championship.

Amor has finished runner-up twice in a row at the English PGA Championship. In 2024, he lost in a playoff. Then 12 months ago, he finished one shot behind Mansell in what was another stellar display of consistency.

Pictured: Ben Amor

“I lost in a playoff in the first year. It was Jamie Howarth who won it. He chipped in in the playoff. It was me and Andrew Willey in a playoff. Jamie birdied the 18^th - and all credit to him, it was a fantastic shot,” Amor recalled.

“Last year, tied second was a good finish for me in the sense that I had a good final round. I was never really troubling Ash.

“I got off to a good start,” he added. “I holed some putts early on. I had a good putt on the first and second holes. On the fourth, I had another good putt as well, so I got off to a pretty good start, and it was just one of those where I was doing everything I could to stay there or thereabouts.

“It wasn't mine to lose with the position that I was in, but if I could be in some position with three or four holes to play, where it was then up to the leader to go on and close out, that's all I could ask for myself.

“I boxed one on 16 across the green for birdie, but Ash birdied 15. At that point, I thought he was pretty settled, but it was just a case of -  try and make as many birdies as possible, but don't push too hard, because it's quite easy to get over aggressive in the final rounds and actually play yourself out of the tournament.”

Amor will hope to go one better at Bowood this year at a golf course he knows well, in the same county as Ogbourne Downs where he is the General Manager.

Both Mansell and Amor have qualified for the Great Britain and Ireland PGA Cup team for the matches against the United States later this year.

Amor’s year has largely revolved around qualifying for Captain David Scott’s team, and he will no doubt look to the English PGA Professional Championship to build further momentum.

“I've been playing well for the last two or three years,” he said. “This might sound really simple, but I’m not playing myself out of any tournament, and some weeks I may have it, and some weeks I may not, but if I'm from there or thereabouts, then it really can come down to who can control their mentality in the final nine holes.

“This is what you practice for,” he added.

“Playing well in these big events helps you to be more comfortable playing in the other big events.

“I class the English PGA and the PGA Pros as two majors for us. It's comforting and also rewarding playing well in those events.”

• The English PGA Championship is being played at Bowood Golf Course & Academy on July 14-16. Click here for more information.