{"id":650708,"date":"2026-05-18T17:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T17:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/650708\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T17:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T17:22:11","slug":"the-nice-guy-who-finished-first-why-all-of-golf-was-glad-to-see-aaron-rai-lift-us-pga-championship-golf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/650708\/","title":{"rendered":"The nice guy who finished first: why all of golf was glad to see Aaron Rai lift US PGA Championship | Golf"},"content":{"rendered":"

By the time Aaron Rai was walking to the 18th tee, 71 holes into the week, 17 holes into the round of his life, three shots clear, Rory McIlroy was already in the clubhouse doing the media rounds. \u201cLooks like he\u2019s going to win,\u201d McIlroy said, as he glanced at Rai on one of the TV monitors dotted around, \u201cwhich is great. You won\u2019t find one person on property who\u2019s not happy for him.\u201d He was right. Or at least if there was anyone out there who felt differently, he wasn\u2019t among any of the many men Rai had just beaten to win the Wanamaker Trophy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s very few people that are nicer and kinder human beings than Aaron,\u201d said Jon Rahm, three shots back. \u201cHe\u2019s such a good dude,\u201d said Xander Schauffele, five behind.<\/p>\n

Rai talks softly polished English with just enough of a Black Country twang that anyone familiar is able to place him as being born and raised in Wolverhampton. He and his wife, Gaurika Bishnoi, moved to Florida in 2024, but he had one of those upbringings that\u2019s left him fiercely proud of where he is from, and what he owes. His father was born in England of Indian descent, his mother was Indian-Kenyan. \u201cI\u2019m very proud of representing all three,\u201d he says \u201cI don\u2019t know what all that represents, or how it\u2019s going to come across, all I can say is I\u2019m very proud to be a mix of all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pride came from understanding the cost. The game came easily, but the life that you needed to live to play it didn\u2019t. His father quit his job to support his son\u2019s golf, his mother worked two jobs to support the family, and his sister started working when she was 14. \u201cI can\u2019t put into words how much they\u2019ve done in terms of the support, in terms of the care, in terms of love, I wouldn\u2019t be here without them at all.\u201d To this day, Rai uses covers on his irons, because he learned early that they were so expensive he needed to take proper care of them.<\/p>\n

Quick GuideAaron Rai’s journey to PGA Championship winShow\"\"<\/p>\n

Born: 3 March 1995 (31 years old).<\/p>\n

First tournament win: 2000 (5 years old).<\/p>\n

Turned professional: 2012 (17 years old).<\/p>\n

Joined Challenge Tour: 2017 when he also secured his first win at the Kenya Open. Won twice more on tour to secure automatic place on DP World Tour.<\/p>\n

First major: 2017 US Open in which he missed the cut.<\/p>\n

First DP World Tour win: 2018 Hong Kong Open where he won wire to wire.<\/p>\n

Earned PGA Tour card: 2021 Korn Ferry Tour finals where he finished second to earn card for the following year.<\/p>\n

Major breakthrough: 2021 Open where he tied for 19th which was his best finish, alongside the 2024 US Open and 2025 PGA Championship, until his victory at Aronimink.<\/p>\n

First PGA Tour victory: 2024 Wyndham Championship when he won, beating Max Greyserman by two strokes.<\/p>\n

DP World Tour milestone: 2025, brought third DP World Tour title via the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, defeating Tommy Fleetwood in a playoff and passing $8m mark in winnings on the tour.<\/p>\n

Masters par-3 champion: 2026, won the dreaded eve of tournament competition.<\/p>\n

Major glory: 2026, captured his first major title at the PGA Championship.<\/p>\n

Photograph: Carolyn Kaster\/AP<\/p>\n

Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnybody that uses head covers on his irons because he coveted his irons when he was a kid so much that he wanted to respect the equipment so much, and still does it?\u201d says Rahm. \u201cThat shows a lot about a person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rai doesn\u2019t have an agent. He doesn\u2019t do social media. His team includes his sponsor \u2013 who he says has been a \u201csecond father\u201d and who paid for his sport, and his private schooling \u2013 two coaches who he\u2019s known since he was a child, a physio, and his wife, who is a pro player herself, and who, he says, \u201cbeats me more times than I beat her\u201d in their putting and chipping contests.<\/p>\n

Aaron Rai\u2019s wife, Gaurika Bishnoi, was previously ranked as India\u2019s No 1 female golfer. Photograph: Frank Franklin II\/AP<\/p>\n

Rai is renowned as one of the hardest-working men on the Tour. \u201cRarely do you feel like people work way harder than you,\u201d says Schauffele. \u201cAaron is always there. He\u2019s always in the gym. He\u2019s always on the range. He\u2019s always \u2013 you know, at the Scottish Open, I\u2019m staying right on site, and I thought it would be fun to go do a little putting with my caddie Austin. And Aaron was out there finishing up his little putting session at 9pm, then going to the gym at 9.45. That\u2019s what being a major champion is all about. The work you put in when nobody\u2019s looking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rai says: \u201cMy dad really instilled the importance of work and dedication in me. Golf<\/a> in itself is an extremely humbling game. There\u2019s so much hard work and discipline that goes into acquiring the skills to become better, but you also realise that nothing is ever given in this game at any point, whether it\u2019s a tournament, whether it\u2019s a practice round, whether it\u2019s even away from a tournament week.\u201d<\/p>\n

For years, it was just him and his dad out learning all this together.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe used to go on to the golf course and practise together, probably up until I was 13 or 14. I didn\u2019t really mix with a lot of other junior golfers,\u201d he says. His dad, who played competitive tennis, had his own ideas about how to get better.<\/p>\n

\u201cUp until the age of around 12 years old, I used to play off basically a customised course length, which gradually got longer and longer every year,\u201d he says. \u201cI thought it was a great idea. My dad thought it was a great idea. But it naturally kind of kept me away from club golf, medal golf.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rai was 14 before he played off men\u2019s tees, and it was only then that he really started playing club golf. While everyone else was out playing medal competitions, Rai was busy setting a Guinness World Record for making the most consecutive putts from 10ft, 207 of them altogether. \u201cThen within two or three years of that, I turned professional.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has improved year on year since. He won in Kenya, and then on the Costa del Sol, in Hong Kong, the Scottish Open and the Abu Dhabi Championship<\/a>. Now it\u2019s the PGA Championship, which will always be his crowning achievement, whatever comes next. He is the nice guy who finished first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By the time Aaron Rai was walking to the 18th tee, 71 holes into the week, 17 holes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-650708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}