DUBLIN, Ohio \u2014 Aaron Rai finally returned home to Florida as a major champion and it didn\u2019t take long for him to realize how life was different.<\/p>\n
One clue was a trip to the grocery store.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t even in golf clothes,\u201d Rai said Tuesday at the Memorial<\/a>, his first tournament since winning the PGA Championship at Aronimink.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cJust a couple of customers that were doing their regular grocery shopping just came over and congratulated me on the PGA and the performance,\u201d he said. \u201cSo yeah, that was very unexpected \u2014 and different.\u201d<\/p>\n When he did get back to his regular practice routine at the TPC Sawgrass, he said it took him longer than usual to get from the parking lot to the range because of so many people who stopped him. That, too, was different.<\/p>\n Most meaningful, however, was when his father came to Ponte Vedra Beach from London. Rai said only when they talked about the week and what he had done did it start to sink in. \u201cMy dad, he\u2019s a very proud man. He doesn\u2019t show a huge amount of emotions,\u201d Rai said. \u201cBut the first evening that I saw him his hug was a little bit different. His smile was a little bit different. We sat and we spoke for probably a good couple of hours or so.<\/p>\n \u201cI could probably hear it more from what I associate with how he is normally and how he was during those first couple of days,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, I think, yeah, that definitely held a lot of weight for me internally.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then there was the hug they shared.<\/p>\n