Sunday at the PGA Championship was designed to be a “free-for-all” between some of the game’s biggest stars. Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffele were firmly in the hunt entering the final round, while Scottie Scheffler lurked on the outskirts.
But the chaotic Sunday that was promised in Aronimink it never materialized. Scheffler never got out of neutralMcIlroy’s driver betrayed him and Rahm couldn’t understand the speed of the greening of the Golden Age. As golf’s stars converged on Sunday, Aaron Rai took control of the tournament as he made the turn and ran away from the field to win his first major title. Rai shocked the world with his victory at the PGA Championship. Nothing about his recent form suggested Rai would be the one walking away from Philadelphia with the Wanamaker Trophy. He had just one top-20 in the year entering the event and had spent last week at the Myrtle Beach Classic in the opposite field while the PGA Tour’s top players were at the Truist Championship.
But it was there, in Myrtle Beach, that Rai found the key to what would be a career-changing victory a week later.
Rai entered Sunday in Myrtle Beach as the 54-hole leader. It was his first time playing in the final group since the HSBC Championship in Abu Dhabi in November. That Sunday, Rai held off McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood to take home the trophy. He lived a different life in Myrtle Beach, stumbling on Sunday and eeventually finishing three shots behind Brandt Snedeker.
But that last set refresher gave Rai what he needed to sail smoothly into Sunday’s heat at Aronimink.
“That experience at Myrtle Beach was absolutely invaluable for the PGA, and I’m not sure I would have handled the situation the way I did at the PGA if I hadn’t experienced it a week ago at Myrtle Beach,” Rai said Tuesday at the Memorial. “Two reasons, really. One, I hadn’t been in the final group for probably a good five months, six months ago. So to get that feeling of what it’s like again was huge.
“There were a few little things that happened during that round on Sunday. Things from the crowd, some mistakes I made in the middle section of the round. I think I made four magics in a row around the turn. I think how my mind went, some things I could have handled better, I was very aware of it, even before Saturday. much fresher in the mind and it’s a lot easier to make those adjustments. So that was with really crucial.
For the first eight holes of his final round at the PGA, Rai struggled. He was one over the round and looked like he might get out of the proceedings. But he bounced back after a bogey on No. 8 and broke free from the pack at the top of a gridlocked leaderboard inside the hour. He holed a 33-foot eagle putt on the ninth and added a birdie on No. 11. Next came the short par-4 13th. Like most players on Sunday, Rai’s shot found the green bunker. All day, players had been trying to play a part and run from the front-right bunker to a back-left pin. All their shots fell short and they left 13th in the table with a draw.
But Rai did what the course demanded; he flew the bunker into the back rack and stopped it 6 feet from the pin. He rolled into the birdshot and never came back.
It was a seismic moment for Rain. The majors are the lens through which we discuss seasons, careers and legacies. Those four days outside of Philadelphia would change a lot for Ray, but the gravity of the accomplishment didn’t set in until he saw his father a few days later.
“It took a good few days, I think, for me to really get my head around it,” Rai said. “I guess I still don’t quite have it. But the next morning was really more of a thrill. I only got four hours of sleep Sunday night. I slept really late and then I just couldn’t sleep in the morning or the morning after I woke up. So I think there was a lot of excitement. It wasn’t until my dad came over that we started talking a little bit later at my house a few days later. hug and let it sink in a little more.”
Rai’s father, Amrik, was a talented amateur tennis player who gave up his dream to put clubs in his son’s hands. He set Ray up to play on a course appropriate for his age, instilled in his son the importance of hard work and dedication from a young age, and helped pave Aaron’s path to his crowning achievement at Aronimink. Amrik lost his son’s win because he fell asleep in his camper van in the UK.
But once Amrik arrived in Jacksonville, his son began to feel and understand the weight of victory.
“My father, he is a very proud man,” Rai said. “He doesn’t show a huge amount of emotion. But the first night I saw him, his hug was a little different. His smile was a little different. We sat and talked for maybe a couple of hours or so. And again, maybe how big of an accomplishment that was. I could probably hear it more from what I associated with the weight I was carrying normally those first couple of days, which it definitely was. for me inside.”
Aaron Rai is still getting used to his new reality – with more people recognizing him, with the added demands of the media, being called a major champion. But that’s all part of the package, one he found the key to unlocking Sunday to forget in an opposite-field event in Myrtle Beach.
