The 2026 PGA Championship was a game of patience and precision. In an era where picking apart golf courses, even major championship ones, with a flavor of violence has become the expectation, there was a welcome shock factor seeing a someone like Aaron Rai emerge from the pack of certified killers to get his hands on the Wanamaker Trophy.
Rai was an unexpected winner. Even halfway through the final round at Aronimink Golf Club, when nobody else in the field was able to get a hand on the door to slam it shut, the Englishman stepped up and did so with authority. Classy, tasteful, and respectful authority, but authority nonetheless.
The golf course itself and the setup took criticism from both fans and players throughout the week, and while the debates back and forth are woven into the rhetoric of every major championship, it felt pointless at Aronimink. We’ll explain why down below.
With such a jam-packed leaderboard and so many big-name players in contention over the weekend, player grades are in order. Spoiler: Ludvig Aberg’s grade is putrid.
This is Par Talk, a weekly read to get you caught up on all the happenings that took place in professional golf that you need to know. You can follow Mark on X @itismarkharris and email him at mark.harris@outkick.com
The 2026 PGA Championship was expected to be a test that favored long hitters with the bomb and gauge strategy to be deployed by everyone who has it in their bag. While longer hitters, including the likes of Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy, Ludvig Aberg, and Justin Thomas, were in the mix come late Sunday afternoon, Rai reminded the world that hitting fairways and greens, and letting a scorching-hot putter go to work, can still get the job done just about anywhere.
Rai entered the week ranked 160th on the PGA Tour in average driving distance and finished the week ranked 66th in driving distance among the 82 players who made the cut. He was forced to slowly carve up Aronimink instead of aggressively picking it apart, and he did so better than anyone else in the field.
The Englishman closed out the week ranked second in strokes gained: approach, fourth in driving accuracy, hit 74% of his greens in regulation, and led the entire field with 22 birdies or better.
While Rai’s 70-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole will understandably garner tons of attention for days to come, his birdie on the drivable par-4 13th hole was, up to this point, the defining moment of his career.
After driving it into a greenside bunker, Rai was left with a 40-yard shot that most players holding a one-shot lead would play with extreme caution. He chose to be aggressive, however, and fly his golf ball onto a shelf where disaster was lurking, yet walked off the green with a birdie and a two-shot advantage.
Rai played his final 10 holes in six-under par before signing for a final-round 65, his lowest score in a major championship by two strokes.
The 31-year-old is known as being among the nicest and most humble players in professional golf, but inside the ropes on Sunday, he was as mean as they come. With his victory, Rai became the first Englishman to hoist the Wanamaker Trophy since Jim Barnes won the original tournament back in 1919.
Maybe we see Rai back in contention at a major championship soon; maybe he never sees the first page of a major leaderboard again. Regardless of what the future holds, he seized the moment at Aronimink on a Sunday in May and entered golf’s history book.
The media — both those watching from home and those with boots on the ground — could not have been more wrong about expectations of how the golf course was going to play throughout the week than they were at Aronimink.
That is not an indictment of anyone, either. I think it’s more of a reflection of how our default setting has become “the long hitters will climb to the top, separate themselves, and scores will be shockingly low.”
I predicted the winning score to be 17-under myself, and thought that was on the more conservative side, so Rai’s 9-under total was a surprise, and a pleasant one at that.
With scores being on the high side and the leaderboard remaining extremely crowded at the top — there were 21 players within four of the lead heading into Sunday — the discourse began that the setup of the golf course was poor.
Shane Lowry, who was never in contention, said the course “has been set up pretty poorly” after the third round. Rory McIlroy explained that the lack of separation on the leaderboard is typically “a sign of not a great setup.” Scottie Scheffler said that he had never seen tougher pin locations in his entire career.
On the flip side of that coin, you have fans at home, enjoying seeing the best players in the world struggle to make birdies on a golf course that played just over 7,100 yards each of the final two rounds.
Without getting too into the weeds, I think the overall consensus of the situation is straightforward.
It’s not the responsibility of golf fans to worry about whether the players love or hate a golf course setup. Most fans seemed to enjoy Aronimink because it is entertaining to see the best players look confused on a golf course. In that same light, McIlroy, Lowry, or any other player is absolutely entitled to share their opinions of a setup, and outside of an egregious statement, shouldn’t take flak. They’re the ones playing the golf course with millions of dollars on the line.
This leads us to a PSA: It is totally acceptable to say you enjoyed this year’s PGA Championship. It was quirky and fun. It resembled a typical U.S. Open more than a typical PGA and it was enjoyable seeing an old Donald Ross track baffle players. And most importantly, it was a great test.
We’re constantly screaming for the best players to be tested more often, and just because it came at a PGA Championship that most expected to be a birdie fest doesn’t mean it should be disparaged.
Aaron Rai: He won the golf tournament…by three. A+
Jon Rahm: Nobody knew what version of Rahm we’d get at Aronimink entering the week. After a T-38 finish at the Masters and with his future in golf up in the air as the Saudis pull funding from LIV Golf, the Spaniard could have no-showed and pouted while doing so. Instead, he had a noticeably good attitude throughout the week and finished T-2 after a 67-68 weekend.
He did leave a couple of shots out there on Sunday, however, and still carries incredibly high expectations. B
JON RAHM APOLOGIZES AFTER HITTING VOLUNTEER WITH FLYING DIVOT AT PGA CHAMPIONSHIP: ‘INEXCUSABLE’
Ludvig Aberg: His final round 69 may as well have been a 79. After essentially going through the motions in his opening nine holes yet still being firmly in contention, a three-putt from 34-feet on the 10th hole ended his day while serving as a great representation for Aberg these days.
He has every physical tool to be in the conversation as the best player in the world, but it’s clear that between the ears, he’s battling and losing. It feels like he’s struggling to find the balance of caring too much and caring too little. He also needs to throw the blade putter into an inferno and start putting with a mallet. C-, even if he did finish T-4.
Alex Smalley: When you grab a two-shot lead after 54 holes at a major championship, you’re doing a lot of things right. His Sunday played out as expected with nervy shots early on and the dreaded double bogey coming at the sixth, but he hung in there a lot better than most predicted, myself included, to begin the day.
Shooting even par in the final round wasn’t enough to get it done, but he probably would have taken that score to begin the day. A- to go along with his T-2 finish.
Cameron Smith: He’s back (maybe, hopefully). Oh, how I missed watching Cam Smith stand over any putt on the property and thinking he’s going to drain it. After six consecutive missed cuts in majors, it was a ton of fun seeing the Aussie back in the mix and finishing T-7. If he gets the driver figured out, he could turn into a factor sooner rather than later again at majors. A-
Rory McIlroy: McIlroy could have packed it in after shooting four-over in the opening round, but instead answered back with rounds of 67-66-69. The one knock against McIlroy, and I believe a justified one, was that he brought exactly zero juice to the course on Sunday. It happens, but not too often on a major championship Sunday when beginning the round just three shots back of the lead. The game was good, nowhere close to great. Two birdies on Sunday, pars on both Par 5s, and a bogey on a 299-yard Par 4. A T-7 finish gets a C+ all things considered.
Scottie Scheffler: From tee to green, Scheffler played well enough to win the golf tournament, but when he stepped on the green, he looked nothing like the No. 1 player in the world. For the week, he finished 72nd out of 82 players who made the cut in strokes gained: putting. A very forgettable T-14. C
