Aaron Rai Won the PGA Championship by Doing the Exact Opposite of What Everyone Said You Had to Do

Aaron Rai Won the PGA Championship by Doing the Exact Opposite of What Everyone Said You Had to Do Get up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at square.com/go/WINGO #squarepod #sponsored Aaron Rai just won the Wanamaker Trophy at Aronimink. And he did it in a way that nobody saw coming — not because of who he is, but because of how he did it. Before the first round was played, the consensus was clear. Rory McIlroy said it himself. Strategy off the tee at Aronimink is basically non-existent. Bomb it down there and figure it out. The longest hitters on tour had a significant advantage. Grip it and rip it. Aldrick Potgieter. Jon Rahm. Chris Gotterup. The bombers were going to have their week. Aaron Rai had a different idea. Over the last three seasons on the PGA Tour, Rai has never finished lower than fifth in driving accuracy. While everyone else was bombing it into the rough and hacking it out, Rai was finding fairways. Seven of his last eight fairways down the stretch on Sunday. Bogey free over his last 10 holes. Six under par coming home. His average approach shot over four days at Aronimink was 170.3 yards — seven yards longer than the field average and ranked 67th among players who made the cut. He was not the longest. He was the most precise. The numbers tell the whole story. His score got lower every single round of the championship — the first player to do that in a major since Mark O'Meara won the Masters in 1998. He holed 182 feet of putts on Sunday alone — the most in a single round of his PGA Tour career. Including a 68-footer on the par three 17th — the second longest made putt by any player all week — that effectively ended the championship. And he did all of this with the entire field chasing him. Jon Rahm. Rory McIlroy. Xander Schauffele. Patrick Reed. Justin Rose. Scottie Scheffler. Brooks Koepka. Every name on that leaderboard had a longer major resume than Aaron Rai. He had one PGA Tour win — the 2024 Wyndham Championship. He had never been in this position before. And he held every single one of them off. The historic context makes it even more remarkable. Aaron Rai became the first Englishman to win the PGA Championship since Jim Barnes in September of 1919 — before the Black Sox scandal, before most of American sports history as we know it. He ended a streak of 10 consecutive PGA Championships won by American players. And with Rory winning the Masters and Rai winning the PGA, it is the first time two European men have won the first two majors of a season since the Masters began in 1934. Trey also breaks down Justin Thomas — who shot a final round 65 and led the clubhouse for a long stretch before Rai's closing birdie run made it irrelevant. JT is rounding into form. His comeback from back surgery is real. And with the US Open at Shinnecock and the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale still to come, he is going to be in the conversation. And then there is the bigger picture. We are 32 days from the US Open at Shinnecock Hills. Two majors down. Two to go. And the 2026 major season has already made history in ways nobody predicted heading into Augusta back in April. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.