As if we needed another reason to jump on the bandwagon of the new and unexpected Winner of the PGA Championshipdirectly from Aronimink in suburban Philadelphia, Aaron Rai, so grounded. Here it comes anyway – extend your gloved hands here.
You know how (to cite one famous example) John “Wild Thing” Daly, the 1991 PGA Champion, will rent out any of his golf apparel in the name of trade? Aaron Rai, the golf softie, doesn’t. Every day is the opposite day at Raiworld. And we like it!
Consider the swirled logo and four stenciled words – Me and my Golf — over the brim of his baseball cap. You see it again on the right chest of Rai’s shirt. (The right chest, for a straight golfer, gets more airtime than the left, at least after the swing is complete.) These are two major pieces of real estate. JD will tell you that. So will JT, as in Justin Thomastwo-time winner of the PGA Championship. each professional tour with an agent will show you this. Except Aaron Rai. Those spaces are not for rent. They are a gift he gives to his two main teachers.
That is, the two guys behind Me and My Golf, Andy Proudman and Piers Ward, a pair of down-to-earth English golfers/professionals who have been with Rain for almost his entire golfing life.
Piers Ward, left, and Andy Proudman with their star pupil at the 2025 Players Championship.
getty images
“It almost feels disrespectful, just calling them ‘my coaches,'” Rai, 31, said at the winner’s press conference in The PGA Championship earlier this month. “They’ve been so much more to me than that, from a young age, as a teenager, on this journey as a professional golfer. They’ve been my mentors, my big brothers. They’ve been almost like family to me.”
Proudman and Ward, who had been with Ray earlier in the week at Aronimink, were honored, but not surprised, to hear the tribute.
“He’s a very generous guy,” Proudman said in a phone interview the other day.
Ward added, “You can see the values ​​he grew up with in everything he does.”
You could say Rai’s comments Sunday night about his two teachers were spot on, except brand it’s not a word you easily associate with Rain. He does not ask to be paid to use this or that product. He is not looking for product at all. His stuff is tried and true and getting better all the time.
Rai’s black left and right handed gloves are not made by FootJoy or G-Fore or any other golf company. They are a product of a small English manufacturer called MacWet Limited, makers of all weather gloves for sailors, hunters and the horse pack. If you zoom in on Rai’s golf glove, you can see the company’s unfamiliar logo. The chances of him registering with you are close to zero unless you are a sailor or a hunter or a member in good standing of the horse pack.
Proudman and Ward remember when Rai first started wearing them, as a golfer hitting balls through the wet, wet English winter. He was already a golfer doing his own thing, a bright young man who would have been bound for college, except that his dream and plan had always been to play professional golf.
“By 17, he was ready,” Ward said. Not ready to take on the world, but ready to start playing tournament golf for money, traveling around the UK as a teenager, often with his father as guide. As for his mentality, teachers said, Rai was a pro as a 12-year-old, but not a mini-pro. To this day, you can see junior players who look and act like 10-year-old Rickie Fowlers.
Rai, according to his two teachers, was a young and analytical player who figured things out on his own with the help of his two teachers and his father. He learned from his breakdowns and his ball flight (as old as you can get) AND from biometric skin stickers on his body.
Proudman started working with Ray when he was about 4 years old. Ward came into the picture a few years later. They met him at the 3 Hammers Golf Complex in England, a public driving range in Birmingham with a short course where Proudman and Ward worked. It was there that the two teachers developed their holistic (mind and body) approach to teaching that is at the core of Me and My Golf, the teaching business they own and operate today.
“With the driver, Aaron’s thing was always in the distance game,” Proudman said. “We had a 70-yard hole, and he was driving the green in (ages) 5 and 6. He’s always been comfortable hitting the driver to very small targets.”
In the wake of Rai wins in Aroniminkmany ordinary golf fans, listening to him talk about the game he clearly loves, were charmed by his modest and unassuming demeanor. Rai is an Englishman of Indian descent on both his mother’s and father’s side. Rai’s mother also spent years in Kenya. The two teachers say that when you visit Rai’s childhood home you are overwhelmed, in the most pleasant way, by the smells and spices of Indian and African cooking.
Like their now famous pupil, Proudman and Ward also have a natural modesty. They described traveling through the United States and Australia a few years ago, staying in hostels to cut costs, making an intimate study of some of the teaching professionals they particularly admired, some of the household names. In the video, you can see the two teachers working with Ray as he uses a stretch stick not only for stretching, but also for balance and foot position. This is achieved by . . standing on the extension stick. The two teachers often ask probing questions and listen carefully, letting the expert do his thing. Good teachers always learn from their students. It’s a two-way street.
“I remember at the BMW PGA Championship (at Wentworth, England) probably six years ago now, Piers was racing me until 11:30 on a Tuesday night,” Rai said Sunday night at Aronimink. “They just go above and beyond for me in every way. They’ve played a big part in this trophy and a big part in my development as a golfer.” But on Saturday night at Aronimink, Rai was the last man standing in the short game practice area, hitting one shot after another without a soul around, not even his caddy.
The two teachers didn’t share the details of the financial aspects of their deal with Ray, but they broadly described his approach to everything he does in golf, whether it’s working with the Me and My Golf guys, not being on social media, using an older driver, rarely looking at his cell phone or anything else.
“If it doesn’t serve his desire to get better at golf, he’s not interested in it,” one agent said.
;)
