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Aaron Rai

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Aaron Rai
Personal information
Born (1995-03-03) 3 March 1995 (age 29)
Wolverhampton, England
Height5 ft 11 in (1.80 m)
Weight150 lb (68 kg; 11 st)
Sporting nationality England
ResidenceJacksonville, Florida, U.S.
Career
Turned professional2012
Current tour(s)PGA Tour
European Tour
Former tour(s)Challenge Tour
PGA EuroPro Tour
Professional wins7
Highest ranking20 (22 September 2024)[1]
(as of 17 November 2024)
Number of wins by tour
PGA Tour1
European Tour2
Asian Tour1
Challenge Tour3
Other1
Best results in major championships
Masters TournamentDNP
PGA ChampionshipT39: 2024
U.S. OpenT19: 2024
The Open ChampionshipT19: 2021

Aaron Rai (born 3 March 1995) is an English professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour and the European Tour. He has won twice on the European Tour; the 2018 Honma Hong Kong Open and the 2020 Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open, and once on the PGA Tour at the 2024 Wyndham Championship. He is one of the few professional golfers to wear two gloves.[2]

Professional career

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Rai turned professional in 2012. In 2014 and 2015 he played on the PGA EuroPro Tour. He won the 2015 Glenfarclas Open after a playoff, finished 5th in the Order of Merit and was promoted to the Challenge Tour for 2016.[3]

Rai was 18th in the 2016 Challenge Tour Order of Merit and just missed out on a European Tour place. His best finish was joint runner-up in the Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge, a stroke behind the winner, Alexander Björk.

2017 was a successful season for Rai, with three wins on the Challenge Tour. In March he won the Barclays Kenya Open by 3 strokes. His Kenya-born mother embraced him on the final green, seconds after his final stroke: Rai said that it was her first visit to Kenya since she left in 1970.[4] He had his second win in May, the Andalucía Costa del Sol Match Play 9, beating Irishman Gavin Moynihan 2&1 in the 9-hole final. His third success came in July in the Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge where he won by 5 strokes. The third win gave him an immediate entry to the European Tour. In May, at Walton Heath, he led international section qualifying for the U.S. Open but failed to make the cut in his first major.[5]

In his first season on the European Tour Rai had four top-10 finishes and ended the 2018 season 58th in the Order of Merit. His highest finish was tied for 5th place in the BMW International Open and he was 8th in the Nedbank Golf Challenge in November.

Rai won the 2018 Honma Hong Kong Open, the first event of the 2019 European Tour season. He led by 6 strokes after three rounds but was pushed hard by Matt Fitzpatrick, who finished with a final round 64. Rai's lead had been reduced to one shot after 16 holes but Fitzpatrick bogeyed the 17th and, despite a bogey at the last hole, Rai won by one.[6]

In September 2020, Rai held the 54-hole lead at the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open, but was unable to convert this into a victory as John Catlin overtook him by two shots; ultimately finishing runner-up.[7] A week later, Rai defeated Tommy Fleetwood in a playoff to win the Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open, a result that lifted him into the world top 100 for the first time.[8][9]

In August 2021, Rai entered the Albertsons Boise Open as part of the Korn Ferry Tour Finals in a way of obtaining a PGA Tour card for the 2021–22 season. He held a one-shot lead on the final hole of the tournament, however a closing double-bogey saw him drop to a tie for second-place, one shot behind Greyson Sigg. The result was still good enough for Rai to secure his card for the following season.[10]

Rai finished 93rd in the Fedex standings in 2022 which secured his playing rights for the following year.

In the third round of the 2023 Players Championship, Rai scored a hole-in-one on the signature 17th island green.[11]

A successful 2024 season saw Rai claim his maiden victory on the PGA Tour at the Wyndham Championship, five other top-10 finishes as well as making 14 cuts in a row. He also qualified for the Tour Championship and was the only golfer in the 30 man field to do so without playing a single signature event.

Personal life

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Rai lives in Jacksonville, Florida and practices at nearby TPC at Sawgrass.

Professional wins (7)

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PGA Tour wins (1)

[edit]
No. Date Tournament Winning score Margin of
victory 		Runner-up
1 11 Aug 2024 Wyndham Championship −18 (65-65-68-64=262) 2 strokes United States Max Greyserman

European Tour wins (2)

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Legend
Rolex Series (1)
Other European Tour (1)
No. Date Tournament Winning score Margin of
victory		 Runner-up
1 25 Nov 2018
(2019 season) 		Honma Hong Kong Open1 −17 (65-61-68-69=263) 1 stroke England Matt Fitzpatrick
2 4 Oct 2020 Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open −11 (70-69-70-64=273) Playoff England Tommy Fleetwood

1Co-sanctioned by the Asian Tour

European Tour playoff record (1–0)

No. Year Tournament Opponent Result
1 2020 Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open England Tommy Fleetwood Won with par on first extra hole

Challenge Tour wins (3)

[edit]
No. Date Tournament Winning score Margin of
victory 		Runner-up
1 26 Mar 2017 Barclays Kenya Open −17 (67-66-69-65=267) 3 strokes France Adrien Saddier
2 21 May 2017 Andalucía Costa del Sol Match Play 9 2 and 1 Republic of Ireland Gavin Moynihan
3 23 Jul 2017 Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge −18 (66-65-69-66=266) 5 strokes Denmark Morten Ørum Madsen

PGA EuroPro Tour wins (1)

[edit]
No. Date Tournament Winning score Margin of
victory		 Runner-up
1 17 Jul 2015 Glenfarclas Open −8 (64-68-70=202) Playoff England Craig Hinton

Results in major championships

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Results not in chronological order in 2020.

Tournament 2017 2018
Masters Tournament
U.S. Open CUT
The Open Championship
PGA Championship
Tournament 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Masters Tournament
PGA Championship CUT T39
U.S. Open T19
The Open Championship NT T19 CUT T75
  Did not play

CUT = missed the halfway cut
NT = no tournament due to COVID-19 pandemic
"T" = tied

Results in The Players Championship

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Tournament 2023 2024
The Players Championship T19 T35

"T" = tied

Results in World Golf Championships

[edit]
Tournament 2019 2020 2021
Championship T51 T18
Match Play NT
Invitational T12 T26
Champions NT NT
  Did not play

NT = no tournament due to COVID-19 pandemic
"T" = tied

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Week 38 2024 Ending 22 Sep 2024" (pdf). OWGR. Retrieved 23 September 2024.
  2. ^ Magowan, Alistair (28 November 2018). "Aaron Rai: the glove-wearing British Asian taking the golf world by storm". BBC Sport.
  3. ^ "2017 Barclays Kenyan Open – Entry List". PGA European Tour. Retrieved 27 March 2017.
  4. ^ "Tears and cheers as Rai win in Kenya". PGA European Tour. 26 March 2017.
  5. ^ "US Open: England's world number 166 Aaron Rai qualifies for first major". BBC Sport. 29 May 2017.
  6. ^ "Hong Kong Open: Aaron Rai wins first European Tour title". BBC Sport. 25 November 2018.
  7. ^ "Grandstand finish hands Catlin Galgorm glory". European Tour. 27 September 2020. Retrieved 27 September 2020.
  8. ^ "Aaron Rai wins play-off with Tommy Fleetwood to seal Scottish Open success". Yahoo! Sports. 4 October 2020. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
  9. ^ Williams, Julie (4 October 2020). "Tommy Fleetwood forces playoff with dramatic putt, but Aaron Rai takes Scottish Open". Golfweek. Retrieved 5 October 2020.
  10. ^ "Rai claims his PGA Tour card despite error". The Times. 24 August 2021.
  11. ^ Schreiber, Max (11 March 2023). "Amid historic stretch at TPC Sawgrass, Aaron Rai aces island green on No. 17". Golf Channel. Retrieved 11 March 2023.
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