Golfer Aaron Rai: A 21-meter putt at the right time

It was the day of Aaron Rai, now there was finally clarity. One of the most complicated holes is hole 17 at the Aronimink Golf Course in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania. All week long, the world’s best players have had difficulties with the green: the penultimate hole is a difficult par 3 to play, you can lose more than you win there. Especially in precarious situations shortly before the end of the tournament. Rai was one of the last to arrive at the 17th hole on Sunday afternoon, leading the PGA Championship, the second major tournament of the year. He hit the green with his tee shot – and sensationally holed his putt from 21 meters.

From then on, Rai was more than a leader: he was a designated major winner who had just produced one of the standout moments in tournament history. No one had holed such a long putt in Aronimink all weekend, the probability was in the tens of thousands. Rai had actually just tried to play as close to the flag as possible: “I definitely didn’t want to hole it,” he said later. But from Rai and his putt you could see what makes golf so attractive: fate sometimes helps the tough.

“You won’t find a person on the site who doesn’t begrudge him this success,” Rory McIlroy later said. The Northern Irishman joined the chorus of well-wishers for the 31-year-old Englishman. Rai is “one of the nicest people in our sport,” said Xander Schauffele. And Matti Schmid also stated: “He is probably the guy on the tour who works the hardest.”

What McIlroy, Schauffele and Schmid had in common was that they all tried to snatch this victory away from Rai, especially Schmid, the German. He played “one of the best tournaments of my life” this week, said the 28-year-old, who ended up tied for fourth – his best result at a major tournament. Schmid had hardly done anything wrong in the final round, he maneuvered calmly and calmly over the difficult course, always finding a way back after small setbacks and leading at times. At some point, however, he looked at one of the scoreboards and saw that Rai had slipped away from the rest of the field: “From then on, it was all about a good placement. And I achieved that.”

Fourth place will be enough for Schmid, among other things, to qualify for the Masters next year, and it will put the young German’s name among the contenders for the big trophies. A great career was predicted for the man from Regensburg since his youth, and he is gradually getting closer to the corresponding successes: Schmid has long since established himself in the USA, in Aronimink he led the small team of three German starters, all of whom sold convincingly. Stephan Jäger finished tied for 18th, Martin Kaymer tied for 35th, these were remarkable results – even if the wish to repeat Kaymer’s major successes from 2010 and 2014 remained unfulfilled.

Rai comes from a world beyond elegant golf clubs

However, Rai’s story is a reminder that the PGA Championship, as the smallest of the four major tournaments, is often underestimated. No German has managed to win for 16 years, but no Englishman has won the tournament in the USA for 107 years. Now the son of an immigrant Kenyan woman and an immigrant Indian man, who raised Rai in a world far away from elegant golf clubs, has succeeded in a tough career path that has left its mark: To this day, Rai protects each of his clubs with a small protective cover, something no one else does in professional golf. The background is that Rai once received an expensive set of clubs from his father as a seven-year-old – and took care of it carefully. Even though he could get new clubs from his brand sponsor at any time today, he has retained this attitude.

Through the small European tours, Rai gradually made his way into the top spheres, without any college training. In a sport that in recent years has mostly been about billions from Saudi Arabia and disputes between very rich athletes, Rai is a complete alternative with origins in the working class environment who has retained this ethos. It is well known among the professionals that Rai is the last player to leave the facility on most days.

“Golf is a fantastic game,” he said Sunday as he spoke politely about his greatest career achievement. And about the attitude he wants to exemplify, now in his role as major winner: “Golf teaches you so many things, and it teaches you so much humility and discipline and absolute hard work. Because in this game, nothing is given to you, no matter what level you play at, no matter what course you play on.” Except maybe a fateful putt at the right time.