I Tested Peter Millar Rainwear on an Ireland Golf Trip — Did It Survive?

A month before eight friends and I flew to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland for an early-September buddies trip, our group chat stopped being funny. The forecast called for a full week of wind and rain, and one of us had just come back from a big-box golf retailer with a warning. He'd asked the clerk whether a certain jacket was the cheapest rain shell in the store. The clerk said yes — then, unprompted, added: "It's not Ireland proof though."

That's the trap with rain gear. You can save money up front, but a squall on an exposed peninsula has a way of collecting what you owe.

I wasn't in a position to judge. My matching rain jacket and pants had been hanging in the hall closet since George W. Bush was in office. I wore them so rarely that replacing them sat near the bottom of my upgrade list. When I finally tried the pants on again, they hung so low off my waist it looked like I was carrying sandbags. The jacket was no better — baggy and stiff.