PGA Champion Aaron Rai's Father is Sikh, Wife Gaurika a Hindu and Sponsor Shabir Randeree a Muslim
Aaron Rai, who grew up playing on public golf courses, was coached by his father while his mother worked two jobs to support the family
By Ignatius Chithelen
May 23, 2026
There were four players of Indian heritage, among the 156 competing for the Professional Golfers Association Championship held last week, at the Aronimink Golf Club, in suburban Philadelphia: Akshay Bhatia and Sahith Theegala, from the United States, Sudarshan Yellamaraju, Canada, and Aaron Rai, England.
Bhatia and Yellamaraju were cut after the first two rounds. Theegala finished tied for 60th place and Rai won the championship. He is the first Englishman to win the title since 1919, the first British Asian to win a major, and only the second golfer of Indian heritage to win one of golf’s four major annual tournaments. Vijay Singh, from Fiji, won three majors: two PGA Championships, in 1998 and 2004, and the Masters in 2000.
“I would not be here without her,” Rai said about his wife Gaurika Bishnoi Rai, at the press conference after his win. She is “a real support system for my game.” Gaurika, 27-years-old, is a professional golfer from India on the Ladies European Tour,
In his twelve previous major tournament starts, Rai had never finished among the top ten players. His highest finish was being tied for 19th at the 2025 PGA Championship and the 2024 US Open.
Last Saturday evening, after the third round of the 2026 PGA Championship, Rai was tied for 8th place. Chatting in the car, he told Bishnoi that, while he had a good chance of winning, he was fearful of success, according to a New York Times report. He was scared that the fame, attention and demands on time, which comes with winning a major, would make him lose himself. Bishnoi told Rai that she would not let that happen, since “We’re going to lead our lives the same way.” She added, “stay true to yourself,” and he will achieve his potential. After chatting for about thirty minutes, they drove to their hotel.
Since qualifying for the PGA Tour in 2021, Rai had one prior win, at the 2024 Wyndham Championship. He had six wins on the international circuit, including the 2018 Hong Kong Open and the 2020 Scottish Open.
In ten starts on the PGA Tour this season, Rai finished four times in the top 25. The week prior to the PGA Championship he finished 5th at the Myrtle Beach Classic.
Heading into Sunday’s final round, Rai was among 22 players within four shots of the lead, which was a PGA Championship record. The others included Scottie Scheffler, from the US, ranked number one in the world, and Rory McIlroy, from Northern Ireland, ranked number two.
Rai, who uses a driver from 2019, is not a long hitter – his average drive of 287 yards places him 151st on the PGA Tour. But he ranks fourth in driving accuracy. In putting, he ranks 154th.
During his final round at the PGA Championship, Rai’s accurate drives, combined with good putting, helped him win. He hit seven of the last eight fairways and made seven straight single putts. On the par-5 ninth hole, he made a 40-foot eagle putt. He then birdied the 11th hole to take the lead, which he held till the end. On the 17th hole, he sank a 70-foot birdie putt. “Was just trying to focus on speed and get it close” to the hole, Rai said at the post-event press conference. “Just kind of conspired all together for that ball to go in the hole…a real bonus.”
Shooting five under par on his final round, Rai finished at nine under par for the tournament, three strokes ahead of Spain’s Jon Rahm and American Alex Smalley. Scheffler finished tied for 14th place and McIlroy tied for 7th. Rai won $3.7 million in prize money, taking his total winnings on the professional golf tour to $12.3 million.
Rai, 31-years-old, is 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighs 168 pounds, 76 kilograms. He has lived in Jacksonville, Florida, since he started playing on the PGA Tour. Like Akshay Bhatia, he did not attend college. At age seventeen, Rai started competing on the lowest rung of the professional golf circuit in the United Kingdom.
Rai’s father Amrik Singh, an amateur tennis player, quit his job as a community worker so he could take him to golf practice and tournaments. From the age of ten, Rai’s parents paid the fees for him to be coached by Piers Ward and Andrew Proudman. Golf professionals in Wolverhampton, England, they now run Me and My Golf, an online academy. They continue to advise Rai, who views them as part of his family.
Since Rai was four, his father took him to hit balls at the 3 Hammers Golf Complex and also to two pitch-and-putt courses, run by the local council. The public courses “played a vital role” in Rai’s golf journey, notes the New York Times.
Speaking of the fees, the equipment and other golf expenses incurred by his parents, Rai told Golf Monthly, “It wasn’t money that we really had, to be honest.” His father sought media coverage for his son’s early golf wins, hoping to attract sponsors.
At age eight, after Rai qualified for the world junior championships, Shabir Randeree started funding Rai’s golf expenses and also paid the fees for him to attend a private secondary school in Wolverhampton. A Muslim of Pakistani heritage, he was the owner of the first golf course Rai joined. He is chairman of DCD, a London-based investment firm. Randeree, who continues to be Rai’s sponsor, has “almost been like a second father to me,” Rai said at the post-chmpionship press conference.
Rai was born and raised in Wolverhampton, a working-class city about 17 miles north of Birmingham. About a quarter of the 300,000 population are Asians, mainly Sikhs, and Blacks. Both sets of Rai’s grandparents were from India. His father Amrik Singh, a Sikh, grew up in England while his mother Dalvir Shukla is an immigrant from Kenya of Indian heritage. Rai has three older siblings, two sisters and a brother.
Asked about his parents at the PGA Championship press conference, Rai said that he “will get way too emotional…I can’t put into words how much they’ve done in terms of the support, in terms of the care, in terms of love.”
Rai imbibed the values of hard work and dedication from his parents and siblings. His mother, who is a mental health nurse, worked long hours, including taking up two jobs for a while, to provide financial support for the family. One of Rai’s sisters started working when she was 14. His father instilled in Rai the importance of building good habits on and off the golf course.
Three or four times a week, Rai watched tapes of Tiger Woods playing in amateur and professional tournaments. He also watched soccer games on TV, is a supporter of Manchester United and a fan of Cristiano Ronaldo, who played for the team.
Up until he was about eight, Rai wanted to be a Formula One race car driver. His interest in golf was due to an accident. His mother bought him a set of plastic golf clubs, mistaking them for hockey clubs.
Rai’s parents, unlike most Indian parents, encouraged him to pursue golf. For other Indian parents, Rai told BBC in 2018, “It was more about getting an education and a proper job, and sport or tennis at that time was never really seen as a proper job.”
Growing up in England, he played golf with two gloves to keep his hands warm and maintain his grip in the often cold, rainy conditions. One day his dad forgot to put the two gloves in the bag, so he had to play with one. “I couldn’t play - I couldn’t feel the grip - so I’ve always stuck with the two gloves ever since.” Unlike other golfers on the professional tour, Rai wears two gloves instead of one, both black and weather-proof.
Rai is humble, polite, kind, and practices harder than most, making him popular with fellow professional golfers. “You won’t find one person on property who’s not happy” for Rai, McIlroy said after Rai’s win.
Unlike almost all sports stars, Rai is modest. He lives in a large, but not palatial, home in Florida. “He’s just not here to market himself as anybody that he’s not,” Rai’s wife Gaurika told The New York Times. Rai has no agent and no social media presence, apparently not seeking to make money from his fame. Gaurika has an Instagram account, with more than 7,100 followers, and an X/Twitter account with nearly 1,000 followers.
(Photo: Gaurika Bishnoi and Aaron Rai at their wedding, 2025. Courtesy Bishnoi Instagram.)
Rai’s major win has boosted his popularity in the UK and the larger Indian market. So, he is likely being offered lucrative sponsorship deals by global sports and consumer brand companies.
Also, if he chooses, Rai does not have to work hard on improving his golf game. With the PGA Championship win, he can play in the tournament for life. For the next five years, he also automatically qualifies for the other majors, Masters, US Open and The British Open; as well as for the PGA Tour.
Will the fame and wealth distract Rai or will he win more tournaments, including majors? From an early age, Rai’s father bought him the best set of golf clubs. After practice and tournament rounds, his father cleaned every groove of the clubs with a pin and baby oil and put on protective covers, including on the irons.
So, unlike other professional golfers, Rai uses covers for his irons. At the press conference, after the PGA Championship, he said he leaves the plastic covers on “to remember where I came from and to respect what I have.”
In 2020, Rai earned $1.4 million in prize money for winning the Scottish Open. He treated himself to a Mitsubishi Evo car, which then cost roughly $70,000, even though he could easily afford a more expensive, luxurious Rolls Royce or Mercedes Benz. Laughing, he explained his choice to a reporter of The Times, London: The Evos, made on a budget, had no flashy interiors, “they were just pure and focused. Those are the values I believe in.”
Gaurika, a Hindu, and Rai married in 2025. In 2018, Gaurika chatted with Rai’s mother during his round at the Hero Indian Open, part of the DP World Tour. It was held at her home club, the DLF Golf Club, near Delhi. Rai’s mother asked her to wait and meet her son, she told Golfweek.
After Rai’s PGA Championship win, a follower commented on an Instagram post by Gaurika, “the more he listens to you the better he plays.”
Ignatius Chithelen is the publisher of Global Indian Times and author of Six Degrees of Education and Passage from India to America. A Chartered Financial Analyst, he is manager of Banyan Tree Capital, New York.