NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. – Aaron Rai eagled the ninth hole and played flawlessly down the stretch to win the 108th PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club on Sunday over Spain’s Jon Rahm and American Alex Smalley.
The 31-year-old Rai closed in 5-under 65 to become the first Englishman to win the PGA Championship in the stroke-play era and first since Jim Barnes in 1919.
Growing up in England, Rai initially dreamed of being a Formula 1 race-car driver like his idol Michael Schumacher, but by the age of 7 or 8 his father had other ideas.
“He was trying to teach me how to play tennis, but my forehand looked more like a golf swing, so then he felt that I may have had something natural for golf,” Rai said. “Then decided to take me in to learn himself about golf and he coached me until I was about 11 or 12 years old. He was a complete non-golfer, so that’s how I started the game.”
That was also when his father bought him his first set of irons, which cost the family a pretty penny, and Rai cherished that set of Titleist 690 MB irons.
“When we used to go out and practice, he used to clean every single groove afterward with a pin and with baby oil,” Rai recalled.
That is the reason why he used covers on his irons to this day, a tribute to his father.
Rai, who had one previous PGA Tour victory to his credit, is probably best known for wearing black golf gloves on both hands, a habit that started in his childhood to keep his hands warm in cold weather and for better grip, control and feel on the club.
Rai emerged from a jam-packed leaderboard. Heading into the final round at the restored Donald Ross gem, there were 22 players within four shots of the lead — a new PGA Championship record, eclipsing the mark of 18, set in 1993. Eight former major championship winners are among the 22 players within four shots of the lead (Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, Patrick Reed, Justin Rose, Martin Kaymer, Cameron Smith and Hideki Matsuyama). That, too, set a new PGA Championship record — and just the sixth time in major championship history that at least eight former major winners have been within four shots of the lead through 54 holes. Rai had grabbed the lead on the back nine on Saturday but bogeyed the last to fall one stroke off the pace at 4 under.
In the final round, Rai was flying under the radar much like one of the City of Brotherly Love’s favorite sons, Rocky Balboa. Rai birdied the first and fourth, but sprinkled three bogeys at Nos. 3, 6 and 8 on his card until he produced his first uppercut to the field. He reached the par-5 ninth in two and rolled in a 40-foot eagle putt to jump to 5 under.
On the back nine, he broke from the pack, wedging to 4 feet at No. 11 and 7 feet at No. 13 to claim the lead. He tacked on another birdie at the par-5 16th, but the knockout blow in Balboa’s backyard was a 68-foot birdie at the par-3 17th.
Rai signed for a 72-hole total of 9-under 271.
With Northern Ireland’s McIlroy winning the Masters last month, it marks the first instance of the first two majors of the season being won by Europeans in the era of the four current major championships (since 1934). Rai also snapped a streak of each of the last 10 PGA Championships being won by Americans.
CBS’s Trevor Immelman put it best: “What a time to have the round of your life.”
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Aaron Rai wins PGA Championship golf tournament