Aaron Rai Overcomes Fear of Success, with Wife’s Help, to Win PGA Championship
Aaron Rai grew up playing on public golf courses in England, coached by his father, while his mother worked two jobs to support the family
May 22, 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 of 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, at the press conference after his win. She is “a real support system for my game.” Bishnoi 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 told him to “stay true to yourself,” which will never stop him from achieving 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, 31-years-old, 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 Rai’s final round at the PGA Championship, his 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, 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 is 5’11” in height and weighs 168 pounds, 76 kilograms. Unlike nearly all golfers, he wears two gloves instead of one, both black and weather-proof. Growing up in England, he played 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 I had to play with one,” Rai told BBC in 2018. “I couldn’t play - I couldn’t feel the grip - so I’ve always stuck with the two gloves ever since.”
Rai is based in Jacksonville, Florida, playing on the PGA Tour. He is from Wolverhampton, England, where he was born. It is a blue-collar city, with an industrial heritage, about 17 miles north of Birmingham. Like Akshay Bhatia, Rai did not attend college. At age seventeen, Rai started competing on the lowest rung of the professional golf circuit.
Rai’s father Amrik Singh, an amateur tennis player, quit his job as a community worker so he could take Rai for practice sessions and tournaments. His father sought to instill in him the importance of building good strong habits. Rai learned the importance of hard work and dedication form his parents and siblings. His mother Dalvir Shukla, who is a mental health nurse, worked long hours, including working two jobs for a while, to provide financial support for the family. One of Rai’s sisters started working since she was 14. Amrik’s parents were immigrants from India while Dalvir is an immigrant from Kenya of Indian heritage.
From the age of ten, Rai’s father paid the fees for him to be coached by Andrew Proudman and Piers Ward, golf professionals in Wolverhampton, who now run Me and My Golf, an online academy. They continue to advise Rai, who views them as part of his family. Speaking of the fees and costs of the golf clubs spent by his parents, Rai told Golf Monthly, “It wasn’t money that we really had, to be honest.”
Shabir Randeree funded Rai’s golf and travel expenses and also paid the fees for him to attend a private school in Wolverhampton. He was the owner of the first golf course Rai joined. 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.
When he was five-years old, Rai wanted to be a Formula 1 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.
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 near Wolverhampton. The public courses “played a vital role” in Rai’s golf journey, notes the New York Times.
Three or four times a week, Rai would watch tapes of Tiger Woods playing in amateur and professional tournaments. He also watched soccer and is a supporter of Manchester United and a fan of Cristiano Ronaldo, who played for the team.
Rai has three older siblings, two sisters and a brother. His 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.”
Speaking of his parents, Rai said at the PGA Championship press conference, “It’s probably hard for me to really express everything that I feel towards them. I think I 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.”
“You won’t find one person on property who’s not happy” for Rai, McIlroy said after Rai’s win. Rai is humble, polite, kind, and practices harder than most, making him popular with the golfers on the PGA Tour. Unlike almost all sports stars, he has no social media presence and apparently does not seek to make money from his fame. He is modest: drives a Honda Integra and lives in a spacious, but not palatial, home in Florida. “He’s just not here to market himself as anybody that he’s not,” Rai’s wife Bishnoi told The New York Times.
Rai’s major win has boosted his popularity in the UK and the larger Indian market. So, he is likely being flooded with lucrative sponsorship offers from global sports and consumer brand companies. While the new sponsorship deals sharply raise his wealth, Rai’s path in future golf tournaments has also become easier.
With the PGA Championship win, Rai can play in the tournament for life. For the next five years, he also automatically qualifies for the other three majors, Masters, U.S. Open and The British Open Championship; as well as for the PGA Tour.
Will Rai be able to remain true to himself and 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 covers, including on the irons, to protect them.
Unlike other golfers on the professional tour, Rai continues to use plastic covers for his golf irons. At the press conference, after his PGA Championship win, he said he leaves the iron covers on “to remember where I came from and to respect what I have.”