Aaron Rai, one of golf's shortest hitters, became England's first winner of the PGA Championship since Jim Barnes in 1919, taking home a £2.76million jackpot. He outran a massed ranks of the great, good, and downright unknowns to deliver a result entirely in keeping with a wild and weird tournament.
Where better than the home of Rocky Balboa for an underdog story ? And who better to deliver a punch to conventional wisdom than a man with two gloved hands?
Step forward Aaron Rai, one of golf’s shortest hitters and its newest major champion. In utterly delightful scenes, this softly-spoken, gently-swinging son of Wolverhampton became England’s first winner of the PGA Championship since Jim Barnes in 1919, taking home the tournament's £2.76million jackpot. And how he did it, outrunning the massed ranks of the great, good and downright unknowns to deliver a result entirely in keeping with a wild and weird tournament.
Rai’s winning score of nine under par via a sublime card of 65 was like the man himself – rarely flashy, sporadically thrilling, and underpinned by his ability to avoid the risks that bring the big misses. It added up to a three-stroke victory over an entire squadron of golfers expected to beat him. We should list them because they were big beasts.
There was Jon Rahm, who met the occasion with a 68 and finished at six under, alongside Alex Smalley and one clear of Justin Thomas and Ludvig Aberg. That same cluster included the charming tales of Matti Schmid, but thereafter more monsters were waiting – Rory McIlroy, for one.
He never got going in a 69, but a tie for seventh will count as a decent return from what he described as a ‘s***’ first round, and next to him were Cameron Smith and Xander Schauffele. Between that grouping spanning second to seventh were men worth 11 majors; in proximity was Scottie Scheffler, Matt Fitzpatrick and Justin Rose.
Aaron Rai is the PGA Championship winner after holding his nerve in a tense final round The 31-year-old surged beyond a close field with a final round score of 65 in Philadelphia The point being that auras weigh a tonne down the stretch on a Sunday. And Rai blew a final-round lead on the PGA Tour a week ago. Not here, though. Not on this day, which crowned a champion in Rai, the guy without an agent.
The swinger who wears two gloves. The working-class man of 31 who still wraps his irons in protective covers because he’ll never forget how much that first cherished set of Titleist 690MBs cost his dad. Standing at 44th in the world and a one-time winner on the PGA Tour, he is no one’s idea of a slouch but nor is he feared. In the land of mammoth hitters, he ranks 160th for driving distance.
But maybe that was his superpower at this 108th edition of the PGA Championship – it is has veered away from the trend of the modern golf and favoured skills beyond brute force. It has put a premium on accuracy, both off the tee and from the fairway, and then it has rewarded the calm minds who can get down in two from the putting surface.
So let’s consider a few details that make the surprise a little less shocking – in the past two seasons, Rai has been the most accurate driver on the PGA Tour. Going further back, right to the time he was a child who dreamt of racing a Formula One car, he once set a world record as a 15-year-old by sinking 207 consecutive putts from 10 feet. That skill has carried into adulthood, by the way.
And somehow it has allowed this magic to happen, because those stars aligned perfectly over the quirky hills of Aronimink Golf Club. They shone so brightly you might be tempted to tweak that old Dubliners tune and rename this place the Fields of Aaron Rai.
Rai, who has one of the shortest drives in golf, outsmarted his rivals to take the crown The 31-year-old shakes hands with golf great Gary Player following his triumph To pick a highlight of his career-defining round would be easy, but also instructive. Because by the time Rai stepped on the ninth tee, he was slipping a little from his overnight tie for second having played the previous eight in one over par.
But then he did his thing – he found a fairway at the par five, reached the green in two, and then rolled in a 40-footer for eagle. He rode that big old bird into the lead and only soared higher from there, setting up a remarkable back nine that he completed in 31 strokes, with the flourish of an almighty putt from 68 feet on the 17th. Pressure? He handled it like an old master.
We ought to add here that no one foretold of a runaway leader. Not with so many men in the pack. By the time the final group of Smalley and Schmid made it to the first tee, at 2.35pm, the increased scoring potential had already been made abundantly clear by Kurt Kitayama - his bogey-free 63 was jointly the lowest ever recorded in the final round of a major.
The wind was gentler, the pin placements were marginally kinder, and therein existed a dangerous siren call for those with the prize in sight. After three days of cautious plotting and careful putting, they finally had an option to attack this course. Rai was the most conservative among them and flourished, but Rahm was the first to strike by opening with back-to-back birdies.
He surged to six under and a share of the lead, which dovetailed with Smalley’s crucial stumble on the sixth, a driveable 380-yarder fortified by an utterly diabolical pin position that was cut eight feet from the front of the green and just four from the right-hand rough. Smalley’s drive pulled left into the rough and after two further hacks he still wasn’t on the putting surface – a double bogey six would send him back to four under.
He recovered in time to a 70 and a stunning result, but that is where his damage was done. For the record, Rai bogeyed that hole, along with the third, sixth and eighth. Rai embraces wife Gaurika Bishnoi following his stunning triumph on Sunday in the US But his eagle just before the turn was transformative. It was the kind of timely jolt that evaded too many of the chasers, such as McIlroy.
A brilliant birdie on the second was merely the precursor for 10 straight pars – his driving regressed from the promise of Saturday. Smith, meanwhile, was held back by tee shots that sprayed to the outer reaches of the property. Rahm? This week was nothing but a success for a man who had much to prove about his standing since joining LIV, but he failed to take chances on both halves of the course.
Aberg will perhaps feel the same about another flat Sunday. Rai was a different story. He stomped his foot on the back with an early marker – a 95-yard approach up the steep hill to the 11th green set up a tap-in birdie for six under, which is when he tied the lead briefly held by Schmid. A moment later, the German dropped one at the 10th and Rai was out on his own.
A six-footer on the 13th gave him a two-shot lead and two became three when he followed that same route of fairway to green to two putts on the 16th. A 68-footer for birdie on the 17th prompted a fist pump, Rai’s first of the tee. Before long, those gloves of a silent assassin were being removed for a trophy presentation. Stunning, really.
PGA Championship Aaron Rai Golf's Shortest Hitters England's First Winner £2.76Million Jackpot Underdog Story Wild And Weird Tournament Aronimink Golf Club
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