Golf0clock

In my group, Aaron Rai would be a punching bag. Journeyman brit with two black gloves. Come on man.

Two gloves. Iron covers. Plastic castle tees in whatever color Walmart was merchandising. If one of my buddies showed up on the first tee looking like that, the roasting would start before he even teed it up and wouldn’t stop until the 19th hole. Same if it was a stranger. We’d be merciless.

So when Rai won the PGA Championship at Aronimink on Sunday, closing with a 65 and making a 68-foot bomb on 17 to effectively end any suspense, my first reaction was admittedly shallow: wait, that guy?

Then I read Alan Shipnuck’s piece on him and felt a little embarrassed about myself.

Rai grew up in Wolverhampton, England, the son of an Indian immigrant father who quit his job to nurture his son’s golf game, and a Kenyan-born mother who worked long nursing shifts to help fund it. Hand-me-down clubs were the reality. So Aaron protected them. Still does. The iron covers aren’t a quirk. They’re a throughline to a kid who knew what those clubs cost.

The two rain gloves? His thing. The castle tees that guarantee the same ball height every single time? Not superstition. Engineering.

Shipnuck quotes Justin Rose describing Rai’s as “hardworking, tough, gritty.” His wife Gaurika calls their life “extremely simple.” No watches. No social media. No fancy new car. He drives a 1997 Honda Integra he imported from England because he loved it as a kid.

I’m going to keep making fun of iron covers in general. That’s not changing. But Aaron Rai gets a permanent pass from me, and honestly, a due respect. He won a major doing it his way, with gear that would get him laughed off most Muni tee boxes.