The final round of the PGA Championship was destined to be more like a boxing match than a golf tournament. No one was running away from the field. No two stars stood alone at the top. But with so many players in the mix through 54 holes, the haymakers, we thought, would be coming from everywhere.
Turns out it was Aronimink Golf Club that threw the majority of the punches — and only Aaron Rai who punched back.
The 31-year-old emerged from a packed field of contenders to shoot five-under 65 and win his first major title on Sunday, becoming the first Englishman to win a major since Matthew Fitzpatrick in 2022. He finished nine under overall to beat Jon Rahm and Alex Smalley by three.
Before Sunday, Rai had only one PGA Tour victory, at the 2024 Wyndham Championship, although he had won three times on the DP World Tour, most recently at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship last November. He had never recorded a top 10 in 12 major starts, although he had made the cut in each of the last eight.
“Everyone playing in the field this week has a great journey to be able to share, and I’m no exception to that,” Rai said. “So much goes into it from being a junior golfer to developing the game to have aspirations of turning professional. Then you realize once you turn professional how good some of these guys are and how strong the level of professional golf is, not just on the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour, and all the feeders that go into it. It’s a really long journey to even get to compete at major championships at events like the PGA. It still hasn’t sunk in for sure.”
Sunday’s final round had all the makings of a chaotic finish, but the story ended up being that too few players were able to really make a move. And Rai, who played the last 10 holes in six under, was the only one who finished with a flurry. The last hour of the tournament was simply a coronation.
Smalley started the day as the 54-hole leader at six under, but the 29-year-old former Duke Blue Devil had never won on the PGA Tour and had played in only four majors. Five players — Matti Schmid, Nick Taylor, Ludvig Aberg, Rahm and Rai — were two back of Smalley, and 21 total players were within four shots of the lead.
The final pairing of Smalley and Schmid, with eight career combined major starts to their name, teed off at 2:37 p.m. local. The four pairings that went off before them accounted for more than 200 major starts and 11 major titles.
But at that point, players already knew there were good scores to be had. Teeing off six hours before the final pairing, Kurt Kitayama put up a 63 — tied for the lowest final round in major history — and jumped into the top 10. Then, not long after Smalley and Schmid started their rounds, Justin Thomas drained a 17-footer for par on the 18th hole to shoot 65. He took the clubhouse lead at five under but was still one back of Smalley. Did it have a chance of holding up? We had to wait hours to find out.
