Jim Barnes won the PGA Championship in 1919. Woodrow Wilson was president. The tournament wasn’t even recognised as a major yet.

It took 107 years for another Englishman to lift the Wanamaker Trophy. Aaron Rai did it on Sunday at Aronimink with a final round so composed it barely looked like sport — more like someone finishing a spreadsheet.

A five-under-par 65. Nine under for the week. Three shots clear of Jon Rahm and overnight leader Alex Smalley. Not bad for a 31-year-old who, by his own admission, couldn’t always practise this year because of a neck injury and hadn’t recorded a single top-20 finish in a full PGA Tour event all season. His previous best at a major was tied for 19th.

The moment that will linger came on the 17th green. Rai drained a 69-foot putt — the second-longest of the entire week — to move three clear of the field. He later admitted he wasn’t even trying to hole it. The shadow of the pin gave him a line for the last ten feet. It tracked. It dropped. He allowed himself a gentle fist pump.

Rai is a singular figure on tour. He wears two gloves — a habit from childhood, when a Wolverhampton company called MacWet sent him a pair at age eight. He uses iron head covers, a practice his father Amrik started to protect a set of clubs that cost money the family didn’t really have. He doesn’t have an agent. His wife handles some of his management.

What he does is keep the ball on the fairway — he ranked fourth for the week in driving accuracy — and let Aronimink’s sloped greens and thick rough punish everyone else. Rahm couldn’t sustain his early charge. McIlroy bemoaned three costly holes. World number one Scottie Scheffler missed 13 putts inside ten feet across the week.

UK golfers have now won the first two majors of 2026, after Rory McIlroy defended his Masters title in April. But this one belongs to Rai alone — a champion who climbed from the EuroPro Tour to the Wanamaker Trophy one quiet, deliberate shot at a time.

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