Aaron Rai arrived at Aronimink last week as part of a crowded group of contenders, but by Sunday evening he walked away with the Wanamaker Trophy after outplaying nearly every major champion around him down the stretch.
The 31-year-old Englishman shot a final-round 65 to finish at 9 under par and win the PGA Championship by three strokes over Jon Rahm and Alex Smalley. Rory McIlroy started the day close enough to make a run, while Scottie Scheffler stayed in contention for much of the afternoon. Ludvig Åberg kept hitting towering iron shots that drew loud reactions from the crowd, but nobody really separated from the field for most of the day and the leaderboard stayed tightly packed entering the closing holes.
The shot everyone at Aronimink will remember came at the par-3 17th. Rai stood over a birdie putt from nearly 70 feet with grandstands packed around the green waiting for something dramatic to happen. The putt looked too fast at first, but it kept tracking toward the hole and by the time it dropped, people were already halfway out of their seats.
“That putt on 17 was incredible,” Rai said afterward. “I was just trying to focus on speed and get it close.”
The noise around the green carried up toward the 18th fairway, where players and fans already seemed to realize the tournament was basically over. Rai’s birdie pushed his lead to four shots with one hole left, and the atmosphere changed quickly after that. Fans who spent most of the day following McIlroy and Rahm started cheering for Rai as he walked toward the final green with the championship under control.
It did not exactly look like things were headed that way earlier in the round. Rai made bogeys on the third, sixth and eighth holes and briefly lost momentum on the front nine. At one point, it felt like he might slide backward while bigger names took over. Instead, he steadied himself with a long eagle putt at the par-5 ninth after a conversation with caddie Jason Timmis about tightening up his targets and shot shapes. Rai added birdies at the 11th and 16th holes before the long putt at 17 finally broke the tournament open.
A lot of players at the top of professional golf now rely on power more than precision, but Rai played a different kind of round Sunday. He hit every fairway on the back nine and avoided the mistakes that kept costing other contenders opportunities late in the day. Aronimink’s rough punished players all week, especially around the greens, and Rai mostly stayed out of trouble once he settled down after the front nine.
The victory carried some history with it too. Rai became the first Englishman to win the PGA Championship since Jim Barnes won the tournament’s first two editions more than 100 years ago. He is also the first player of Indian descent to win a men’s major championship.
Rai has always stood out a little from other players on tour. He still wears two black gloves during rounds and keeps iron covers on his clubs, habits that go back to childhood. His mother immigrated to England from Kenya, while his father immigrated from India. Rai first picked up golf after hurting himself while playing with hockey sticks as a toddler, which led his mother to buy him plastic golf clubs instead. Later, his father left his job to help guide Rai’s golf career as the family focused heavily on practice and discipline.
Players across the leaderboard sounded genuinely happy for him afterward. McIlroy said “you won’t find one person on property who’s not happy for him,” while Åberg called Rai one of the kindest players on tour. Schauffele described him as one of the hardest workers in golf. Rai barely reacted after tapping in on the 18th green, but the emotion finally showed a few moments later when he hugged his wife, Gaurika Bishnoi, near the scoring area while fans kept cheering outside the clubhouse at Aronimink.
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