NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. – Aaron Rai had no idea what to do.
He had just finished a 1-meter putt to secure the biggest win of his professional life, coming out of a pack of heavyweights and leaving them in the dust, building a back nine reel en route to a shock first major championship title. But the moment the job was done, Rai suddenly seemed lost. No fist pump. No waves. He swayed in one direction, then another. And then, as the Philadelphia faithful roared, Rai did what felt most natural.
He turned to his playing partner, removed his hat, and offered his hand.
“He’s very kind,” Ludvig Aberg said a few minutes later, laughing at the time. “He’s one shot away from winning his first major and he still said ‘good shot’ to me? He’s taking the time to look me in the eye and say well done? That’s remarkable. That’s really impressive.
“If there’s one guy I’d rather lose to, it’s probably him.”
NOW YOU’VE HEARD OF RAI’S IRON CAPS. If you’re a golf fan, you probably are I know the story. He’s the only high-profile pro to use them – and they’re widely considered cool in a sport where different is frowned upon. But that is also the point. Thus they serve to explain Aaron. Iron caps tell its story. Here is a concise version he provided on ESPN:
“My mum and dad worked incredibly hard to support me and my dad would buy me the best equipment he could, and he got me a really nice set of irons, which he paid a lot of money for. And after every practice session he’d come home and clean every groove with baby oil and a needle to remove all the dirt and grime. What I (use them) now is to remember where I came from – and also to respect the things that I have.”
It’s an incredible story. We can leave this part here and you would get the idea. Rai is different. He is grateful. He is humble. And he is proud of the country he came from. Also, Rai can show a clean likeness.
But many boys learn habits from their fathers and then abandon them when they realize they are no good. No Rai. So how did he avoid the pressures of conformity and sameness? Why isn’t he wearing a white golf glove, a brand logo hat, a too-cool-for-school attitude, as is the status quo on Tour? He considered the question in his post-round press conference, then turned to his father.
“I think my dad played a really big part in that,” he said. It was both of them for most of his childhood, he said. They would practice together, read about golf, watch Tiger Woods VHS tapes. Amrik begged Aaron to stay in his lane, control the things he could control.
“And I didn’t mix with a lot of other young players, which didn’t give me a perspective of what was normal,” added Rai. “So I think he kind of accommodated me so that I could develop in a way that made sense to me, in a way that I think was a little bit unique — two-handed, iron-clad, etc.”
By the time Rai was a teenager, playing more serious competitive golf and eventually at the professional level, he had enough confidence in himself to stay the course, to double himself up.
“I felt like I was pretty strong in why I did certain things,” he said. “I knew the reasons why I do them. I believe in the reasons why I do them. So I had no reason to walk away from that growing up.”
AARON RAI WINS THE PGA CHAMPIONSHIP the same way every golfer achieves success: By being yourself.
No, he wasn’t the main champion we were expecting. We entered this week in a series of brand name winners. Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler had won four of the last five, the last decade of PGA Champions are all multiple major winners and there was every reason to believe that, like them, this week’s winner would come from the level of top-ranked, big-hitting alpha dogs.
Even with Sunday’s traffic-jam leaderboard — 30 players within five shots of the lead — there were enough big names in the mix that it looked like someone was going to finish on top. When Rai birdied three of the first eight holes, he looked destined for the also-ran ranks.
But then Rai started building a master reel.
First with one bomb for the eagle on No. 9 from the back of the green, where McIlroy had par just minutes earlier.
Then, with an incredible bunker shot on the short par-4 13th, he landed his 40-yarder on top of a small shelf and stopped it in one stop, making birdie where Xander Schauffele had just made bogey.
Then with a glorious high-cut approach on the par-5 16th, the exact shot required by the hole and the moment, setting up an easy two-putt birdie that opened a gap to the rest of the field.
And then, improbably, with a 68-foot birdie bomb on No. 17, the most packed area with spectators, sending the loudest noise of the week rippling through the property. It was an exclamation point. Suddenly he rose from four. Suddenly the tour was over. Suddenly everything had changed.
WHO IS AARON RAI? If the jury is his peers, he will do well.
Take Schauffele, a two-time major champion, who was excited to share his impressions of Rain.
“I’m very happy for him. He’s a very good guy,” he said. “You rarely feel like people work harder than you … but Aaron is always there. He’s always in the gym. He’s always competing. He’s always — you know, in Scots, I’m standing right there. I thought it would be fun for (his dad) Austin and I to go to the shot put. 9:45.
“That was three years ago. I think that’s what it’s all about. To be a great champion, you have to work when nobody’s watching. Super pumped for him and his team.”
McIlroy, who won the Masters last month, maintained his approval rating.
“It looks like he’s going to win, which is great,” he said after the round. “You won’t find a person on the property who isn’t happy about it.”
“Aaron is a super hardworking guy,” added Matti Schmid, who finished T4. “Probably the hardest working guy on the tour. He does everything with purpose. He practices with so much purpose. I think he does a lot of things the right way, and that’s why he’s the winner today.”
And although Jon Rahm hasn’t spent much time with Ray, he knows the history of the iron cap, and that tells him a lot.
“That he’s still doing it says a lot about a person,” he said. “I have heard over and over that there are very few people who are better and kinder human beings than Aaron Rai.”
THERE IS A TENDENCY TO SAY THAT HEAVEN IS NOT FOT. This is the subtext of the cover story of the irons, of the two black golf gloves, of his insistence on decency above all else.
But that completely misses the point.
Rai does things his way. Exercises, plays, thinks, talks, dresses. He won by doing things his way. He will continue to do things his way. He will continue to win as well.
So he may not have had a big celebration after the round of bottle service. But he had something that money couldn’t buy: His wife, Gaurika, sitting by the stage, smiling as she made him a promise:
“I can take you to Chipotle!”
He smiled.
“We’ll probably go to Chipotle.”
With a trophy in tow.
What could be cooler than that?
Dylan Dethier welcomes your comments at dylan_dethier@golf.com.
“>
