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Aaron Rai wins first PGA Tour title at Wyndham Championship

Irishu
Aaron Rai wins first PGA Tour title at Wyndham Championship

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Aaron Rai was the last man standing in near darkness during a 36-hole endurance test Sunday and won his first PGA Tour championship. Wyndham Championship Thanks to Max Greyserman’s ninth-inning blast.

Rai, a 29-year-old Briton who won his last DP World Tour victory in 2020, shot a bogey-free 64 in the final round at Sedgefield Country Club to take a two-stroke victory.

“It’s really a dream come true,” said Rai, who signed for a 72-hole total of 18-under 262. “It’s a magnificent achievement.”

But Greyserman was on the wheel after a 91-yard putt for eagle on the 13th hole and looked to be four shots ahead with five holes remaining. Apparently, he wasn’t so fast. His shot on the 14th hole sailed wide right, bounced off the driveway and over the fence.

“If this driveway doesn’t come through, we’re probably in a different situation,” Greyserman said. “I’m probably doing five at worst.”

Instead, he compounded his mistake with another blunder, a horrific quadruple bogey 8 that wiped out his lead in one go. Afterward, he managed to make light of the situation, telling reporters that he had done the same thing when he competed in a Korn Ferry Tour event before, saying, “I have to ask people not to put driveways on the right side.”

Greyserman, a 29-year-old Tour rookie, took back the lead at 18 under with a two-putt birdie on the 15th hole, but despite leading the field in strokes in the tournament up to that point, he four-putted on the par-3 16th hole — three from 3 feet — and made double bogey to drop to 16 under. He closed with a 69 and finished alone in second place.

“I played well enough to take it and run with it,” he said. “I’m just going to leave with more confidence, look at the positives and learn from the mistakes.”

Rai, who opened with a pair of 65s and added a third-round 68, chased Greyserman with four straight birdies starting at No. 3 and moved to 16 under. He made a birdie at No. 12 and then five straight pars. He said he was unaware of Greyserman’s ups and downs because he avoided looking at the leaderboards.

“I thought it would be best not to really look at what was going on in the fourth round,” Rai said. “I think that was probably a good thing, it just helped me focus on the golf. I was playing well and I knew if I finished well, I never knew what was going to happen.”

On the 18th hole, Rai’s next-door friend, Billy Horschel, asked him if he wanted to know where he stood. Rai declined, and Horschel told him to stay strong. Thirty seconds later, Rai changed his mind and consulted his caddie, who told him all he needed to know when he said, “Just focus on playing a good hole here.”

Rai clinched the win with an 8-foot birdie putt on the final hole. Rai, ranked 48th in the world, has finished in the top 20 in five of his last six starts and in the top 10 in three of those, including a T-2 finish at the Rocket Mortgage Classic and a T-4 finish at the Genesis Scottish Open. Rai ranks fourth this season in the Strokes Gained: Total ranking, which measures the number of strokes per round that a player makes better or worse than the field average on the same course and event, and is behind only world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, No. 2 Xander Schauffele and No. 3 Rory McIlroy. Rai said that while he has always had a knack for putting the ball in the hole, the difference that finally helped him cross the line and win was adding hitting coach John Graham. As a youngster, he made a world-record 207 consecutive 10-foot putts in a 90-minute span, once breaking the world record.

“I think the previous record was 136,” Rai recalled. “I probably wouldn’t be able to do 207 in a row now. I was 15 at the time, so it’s been a long time now.”

JJ Spaun finished T-3 with a 64, the lowest score in the final round, beating Japan’s Ryo Hisatsune.

Victor Perez, the “Bubble Boy” who started the week at No. 70 in the FedEx Cup standings, shot 68 and finished 33rd, putting him in last place in the 70-man playoffs that begin next week at the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis.

After Tropical Storm Debby dumped more than six inches of rain on the course on Thursday and the start of the tournament was postponed until Friday, Sunday was a marathon. Play was suspended the next two days because of darkness, preventing the 36-hole cut until Sunday morning and requiring the advancing 67 players to play at least 36 holes. Amateur Luke Clanton, who finished in fifth place, shot 39 and signed scorecards for three different rounds in one day. Only Matt Kuchar, who was in the last group and went to the left on 18, chose to wait to complete his round on Monday. He is 11 under and has failed to qualify for the FedEx Cup playoffs for the first time since the playoffs began in 2007.

It was the final wrinkle in a wild week at the Wyndham Championship and it will be remembered more for the man who lost the trophy than for the man who won it.

“This feels like my 2006 Phil Mickelson moment,” Greyserman said of the left-hander’s infamous collapse on the final hole of the 2006 U.S. Open. “So hopefully this means good things to come, like it did for him.”