In May, Aaron Rai achieved something no Englishman had achieved in more than a century – winning the US PGA Championship.
While the 31-year-old made history in America and has lived in Jacksonville, Florida, for three years, Rai said the place that shaped his game was his home city of Wolverhampton.
Speaking to BBC Radio WM, Rai said his earliest golfing memory was playing in his first junior tournament at the 3 Hammers Golf Complex in Wolverhampton, where he remembers telling his dad “wow, this is what you call hard” when faced with a large tree on one of the holes.
Rai’s coach still refers to 3 Hammers as Rai’s happy place, with the golfer saying he has many memories of playing at the course.
However, it is the array of courses in and around the city that Rai credits with his skill.
“Golf was a really big part of my life since the age of five or six, so a lot of my childhood memories revolve around the game,” he told the BBC.
“Wolverhampton was and is such a great place to golf – so many different styles of courses – so the variety of golf within pretty close proximity definitely helped shape my game.”
Rai also credits his high school, Wolverhampton Grammar School, as being very flexible when it came to him practicing.
“Golf was always something I wanted to make a career out of one day,” he said.
However, the golfer laughed when listening to a clip of himself at the age of five, , Facebook, X and Instagram.