Newtown Square, Pa. – The beauty of it all, at the end of the day and at the end of this 108th PGA Championshipit’s that HE can’t touch it. Along those same lines, you can spend all the money you want on marketing, you can do whatever you want to do on Instagram and X, and you can beat yourself up on YouTube until you’re blue in the face.
But on Sunday night at a major, as is proven time and time again in this global venue, shots are shots, scores are scores, lies are lies, weather is weather – and none of it is for sale. Live golf is a place where prediction markets can go to die. How awesome is that?
it The PGA Championship was not won by Jon Rahm, Cameron Smith, Rory McIlroyXander Schauffele, Justin Rose, Patrick Reed, Matt Fitzpatrick, Scott Scheffler, Jordan Spieth or 54-year-old Padraig Harrington, to give you the full list of former major winners who finished at par here. It was won by Aaron Ray31-year-old hard-working Englishman of Indian origin who plays on the PGA Tour and lives in Jacksonville, Fla. He earned the right to hoist the Wanamaker Trophy the old-fashioned way. That nine nine compared it.
Rai won by three over Rahm, who is also 31. In the alphabetical list for next year’s European Ryder Cup team, there is no one between these two guys. Appearance and style is another thing. Rahm’s chin alone should be worth half a stroke on any Sunday, just as Rory McIlroy’s cushion at the end of the fairway is worth something. Rai, with his slim physique and modestlywith a golf glove in the left and right hand, it won’t make other pros flinch on their way from the first tee to the first green. But Rai’s rounds at Aronimink were 70, 69, 67 and 65. This Donald Ross course played TOUGHfor four consecutive days. He played a little golf.
“It definitely feels like a journey,” Rai said in victory, a British accent that hints at his long journey from a working-class suburban town in Birmingham, England, to this leafy Philadelphia suburb. “Everyone in this field has a journey to share, and I’m no exception.” What a selfless and humble thing to say. One thing this man is not, for sure, is a country club fiend.
This victory did not come out of nowhere. (Except perhaps in this sense: Rai played in the third-to-last group of the day, not the pair likely to produce the winner. Then, when the leaders are stacked like sardines in a can over three rounds, as they were here, winners can come from most any starting time.) Rai turned pro at age 17 and has spent many years and 14 years at the world’s best.
Gary Playerthe great South African golfer who won the 1962 PGA Championship here turned pro at 17 as well. The player is now 90 and was at the awards ceremony on Sunday night wearing a blood red blazer and a grandfatherly smile. The player is forever celebrating the global game and the impossible paths to perfection. He welcomed Aaron Rain to golf’s center stage to rapturous applause.
Maybe you didn’t have Rain in your office pool. Maybe you weren’t talking about it at the barbeque on Saturday night. It’s not his fault. The opposite. That’s what we’re celebrating here. The Masters was won by a working-class Belfast boy. McIlroy has a famous journey in the game, but every golfer, professional or amateur, has a journey story to share. You can always ask other players about their starts. It will always give an interesting answer. Aaron Rai started on a par-3 course near his family’s home. His parents would take him there.
For most of 100 years, male degree winners were exclusively white. Then came Vijay Singh, Tiger Woods, Michael Campbell, JJ Spaun, now Aaron Rai. One day not too long from now this will not be a thing at all. Until then, it’s worth mentioning because this game is better when people from every possible background and from all corners of the globe have a path to it. You can’t win a major if you don’t have a place to start playing in the first place. Aaron Rai started playing at 3 Hammers Golf Complex. He won in Aronimink.
He was at the awards ceremony with his wife, Gaurika Bishnoi, herself a professional golfer. If her Indian name doesn’t roll off your tongue, you can always practice it. That depends on you. On Saturday evening, as dusk approached, Rai was practicing alone in the short game area here. No caddy, no bag, no escort. Just a lone golfer wearing two gloves playing one shot after another with a club.
Maybe Rai will win more degrees, maybe not. We can promise you this: He’s not a random winner. He is not a flash in the pan. He just wasn’t the guy you expected to win.
His manner is beautiful. In victory, he spoke about his wife, touchingly. He talked about his parents and siblings and their sacrifices for his golf. He talked about his sponsor – not a company, but an actual person, a man named Shabir Randereenot, a sort of second father to Rai. He talked about this game and his path through it. If you’re looking for a new golf hero who has no sense of entitlement, we direct you to this newest name in the Wanamaker Trophy.
“There’s so much work and discipline that goes into acquiring the skills to get better,” the winner of this 108th PGA Championship said Sunday night. “Nothing is given in this game.”
He talked about the focus golf requires, the attention it demands, the lessons of humility it offers. Humility, Aaron Rai said, was one of the core values ​​of golf and the foundation of his life as well.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com
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