PGA Championship: Aaron Rai solves Aronimink Golf Club to win his first major
Rai entered the weekend with just one PGA Tour victory. While the Philly crowd was pulling hard for the big guns, Rai, who finished at 9-under par, is a fitting champion.
Aaron Rai dropped his arms to his side and paused, as if he was in a state of disbelief. His putt on the par-3 17th hole traveled more than 68 feet across one of Aronimink Golf Club’s signature large, sloping greens and found the bottom of the cup.
Rai, who won the 108th PGA Championship going away, didn’t necessarily need the birdie, and he admitted after his round that he wasn’t trying to hole it. His high cut into the par-5 16th green and two-putt birdie had given him some breathing room. But if you’re going to win your first major, you might as well do so in style, and end your brief did-I-just-do-that trance with a fist pump.
Rai, 31, finished the championship at 9-under par, three shots clear of Jon Rahm and Alex Smalley, and four shots ahead of a group at 5-under that included Justin Thomas. Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, and Cameron Smith finished at 4-under par.
Rai, the 44th-ranked player in the world, entered the weekend with just one PGA Tour victory, the 2024 Wyndham Championship at North Carolina’s Sedgefield Country Club, which, like Aronimink, is a Donald Ross design. He shot a 5-under 65 on Sunday, when a golf course that wreaked havoc on the playing field finally relented a bit.
The story heading into Sunday’s final round was that it was anyone’s tournament to win. Twenty-two players were within four shots of the lead, the most in PGA Championship history. It was just the third major championship played on American soil to feature six home countries among the top five and ties heading into a final round.
» READ MORE: Aronimink’s pin locations — and whipping winds — wreak havoc on PGA Championship field
Rai, then, became a fitting champion. He’s the first player born in England to win the event since Jim Barnes in 1919. His scorecard on the front nine was appropriate for what was a wacky week, too. Rai made three pars, three bogeys, and two birdies through his first eight holes.
His round flipped on the 589-yard par-5 ninth. Rai was 260 yards out after a perfect tee shot in the middle of the fairway. He blasted a wood that landed short of the green and rolled 40 feet past the flag before rolling in a downhill, left-to-right putt for eagle.
“I was just trying to focus on speed,” Rai said. “Hit a great putt, great speed, and we were lucky it went in.”
The rest of the round was anything but luck. Rai made four birdies during his closing nine.
The Philly crowd was pulling hard for the big guns like McIlroy, Rahm, and Thomas. But Rai might be a perfect champion for the area’s first men’s major championship since the U.S. Open came to Merion in 2013.
The two black gloves Rai wears are the most noticeable thing, but he also is unique in that he uses iron headcovers to protect his clubs. Rai once explained in a 2021 interview with SiriusXM that he grew up in a working-class family. His mother, Dalvir, immigrated to England from Kenya. His father, Amrik, was born in England but has roots in India. They once purchased an expensive set of Titleist irons for Rai when he was a young kid.
After practicing, Rai’s father used to stand over the kitchen sink and clean each groove with a safety pin and baby oil. He started using covers on his irons then and has used them ever since.
“Although I can get another set of irons for free now, using iron covers is a reminder of where I’ve come from and what I have access to,” Rai previously told Today’s Golfer.
After hoisting the Wanamaker Trophy on Sunday, Rai called golf “an amazing game.”
“It teaches you so many things,” he said. “It teaches you so much humility and discipline and absolute hard work because nothing is ever given in this game, no matter what level you’re playing, no matter what course you’re playing on.”
The grooves on those irons were plenty clean when Rai launched his high cut shot into the 16th hole Sunday. The birdie there almost officially ended Thomas’ chances, but for a while the two-time PGA Championship winner had a shot.
Thomas started his day at 10:55 a.m. in the 21st pairing of Sunday, 20 groups behind Smalley, the 54-hole leader, and Matti Schmid. He ended his round after a 16-foot par putt on the 18th hole. He had a prayer, and for a while, 5-under had a real chance to win the tournament.
Thomas had a long wait ahead of him. He recalled a scene from the 2016 Travelers Championship in Connecticut. He shot 8-under in the final round and headed for the clubhouse for beers. The wind kicked up and made things tough on the rest of the field. More than two hours went by and Thomas was still in the lead. His caddie had fled the premises and was at a Subway more than an hour away.
» READ MORE: A wild Saturday stampede of stars validates the PGA Championship and Aronimink
“I’ve never not wanted to be in a playoff before, but I kind of didn’t want to be in a playoff then,” Thomas said. He ended up two shots back of the winner. “That wouldn’t have been a good situation. So I’m not going to do that, I promise you that.”
This time, the wait was even longer. No one posted lower than 5-under until Rai, playing in the third-to-last group, finished nearly four hours after Thomas signed his scorecard.
Thomas would’ve preferred the playoff this time. He took a liking to Aronimink a year after lauding the area during the Truist Championship at Philadelphia Cricket Club.
Players seemed peeved a bit by the course setup and pin locations during the tournament, but the old Ross design made for a true test against the world’s best. Only three players went through their four rounds without going over par for a round.
And Philly-area golf fans came out in droves. The PGA Tour doesn’t have a regular stop here, and an area rich in golf tradition that is home to some of the best courses in the country doesn’t have a marquee men’s golf event to look forward to until the 2030 U.S. Open at Merion.
“I’ve said to a couple guys, players and my caddie this week, I hope we come to this area more,” Thomas said. “These golf courses are awesome. I’d love to go back to Philly Cricket Club somehow. I’d love to go back.
“It’s just a crazy amount of fans have come out, and it’s been great energy. Just the golf courses in this part of the country, I think, look great. ... I don’t know. I enjoy the golf in kind of this part of the country.”
Surely, Aaron Rai does now, too.
