Aaron Rai hasn\u2019t received the Wanamaker Trophy since his 2026 PGA Championship win. The prestigious PGA Championship title is his until 2027, when he will play the major again. But the PGA of America is making him wait, and the Englishman knows why.<\/p>\n
Rai recently explained the reason to Adam Schupak of Golfweek: \u201cWe actually haven\u2019t received it yet. I think there was an issue with a bit of damage on the trophy, so they said they will send it in the coming days. I\u2019m not sure what exactly happened. But there was just a little bit of damage towards the top of the trophy, which they wanted to fix before it went anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
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While Rai has to wait for his, Walter Hagen infamously didn\u2019t present the Wanamaker Trophy for three consecutive years from 1926 to 1928. He forgot it behind a taxi in 1925. The American legend kept winning the major until 1927 and kept arguing that he didn\u2019t need to present it because he was still the champion. But in 1928, Hagen had to reveal he lost<\/a> it after Leo Diegel claimed the title.<\/p>\n Rai can only keep the Wanamaker Trophy with him until May 17, 2027, after which he has to take it with him to the Fields Ranch East course at PGA Frisco in Frisco, Texas, for the next edition of the PGA Championship. After that, the PGA of America will provide him with a replica of the Wanamaker Trophy.<\/p>\n Interestingly, until 2009, PGA champions had to purchase a replica trophy that was 90% the size of the original after a year. Since then, the PGA of America has been giving the replica free of cost.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n After four grueling rounds of challenges, Rai stood out. He became the first golfer in the history of the PGA Championship to have a better score after each round. And the Englishman delivered the killer blow on Sunday with a 5-under 65 when everyone else was struggling.<\/p>\n Aaron Rai wins the Wanamaker Trophy and the love of the entire golf world<\/p>\n Greg Norman posted on his Instagram<\/a>, \u201cCongratulations to the champion, Aaron Rai, on your first major. Your humility, passion, love, and respect for what you have and what you got here is a breath of fresh air. May success continue to flood your way.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s difficult to earn praise from the Great White Shark. To get him to share a picture of you on Instagram with such a complimentary caption is certainly extraordinary. Then again, his peers also didn\u2019t hold back on acknowledging his efforts<\/a>. Big names like Rory McIlroy<\/a>, Xander Schauffele<\/a>, and Jon Rahm<\/a> gave him a lot of praise.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n McIlroy told the media, \u201cAaron is getting away from the field a little bit and looks like he\u2019s going to win, which is great. You won\u2019t find one person on the property who\u2019s not happy for him.\u201d<\/p>\n Rahm also said to the reporters, \u201cI have heard absolutely nothing but good or great things about Aaron Rai. He\u2019s been playing great golf. He\u2019s a fantastic golfer. He\u2019s been able to perform really well. What he did today is nothing short of special.\u201d<\/p>\n Schauffele commented, \u201cI\u2019m super happy for him. He\u2019s such a good dude. Rarely do you see people work really hard. I mean, that\u2019s not fair. Rarely do you feel like people work way harder than you is what I was trying to say. Super pumped for him and his team.\u201d<\/p>\n While they shared their disappointment, they couldn\u2019t help but acknowledge how amazing the Rai was.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Trending Articles<\/p>\n The post \u2018There Was an Issue\u2019: Aaron Rai Shares Statement on Damaged Wanamaker Trophy After PGA Championship Win<\/a> appeared first on EssentiallySports<\/a>. Add EssentiallySports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aaron Rai hasn\u2019t received the Wanamaker Trophy since his 2026 PGA Championship win. The prestigious PGA Championship title…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[25855,230702,427,14192,105062,99,275163,274443],"class_list":["post-661112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-aaron-rai","tag-adam-schupak","tag-golf","tag-pga-championship","tag-pga-of-america","tag-sports","tag-walter-hagen","tag-wanamaker-trophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661112","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=661112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}