Matt Fitzpatrick wins PGA Championship, ends American streak at Aronimink

Aaron Rai did not arrive at Aronimink Golf Club as a flash-in-the-pan story. He came in as a methodical, low-profile contender whose steady rise had already been building toward a breakthrough, and he finished Sunday with the most significant win of his career, capturing the 108th PGA Championship with a final-round 5-under 65 and a 72-hole total of 9-under 271.

The 31-year-old Englishman beat Jon Rahm and Alex Smalley by three strokes at the course in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, and did it with a closing stretch that reflected his patience as much as his precision. Rai rolled in a birdie putt from more than 50 feet on the par-3 17th hole, then played the 18th conservatively for par to close out his first major title. It was only his 13th major start, but the result fit a player whose rise has been steady rather than sudden.

Rai’s victory also carried historical weight. He became the first English-born winner of the PGA Championship since Jim Barnes in 1919, the first non-American winner since Jason Day in 2015, and the first player of Indian heritage to win a major championship. The result snapped a streak of 10 consecutive American winners in the championship, a run that underscored how crowded the top of the game has become and how quickly a player outside the marquee names can still take over a major.

The setting amplified the moment. Aronimink last hosted the PGA Championship in 1962, when Gary Player won, and the club’s roots go back to 1896, with the move to its current site in 1928. This year’s championship, golf’s only all-professional major, drew a deep field that included Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Ludvig Åberg and Justin Rose, yet Rai finished ahead of all of them. His second PGA Tour victory, following the 2024 Wyndham Championship, suggested a player whose progress had been building for some time.

Rai has also become one of the tour’s most recognizable stylists, known for wearing two gloves, a habit that began when he was 8, and for using iron covers. Those small routines have long matched the larger shape of his game: disciplined, unhurried and exacting. Schauffele said Rai’s breakthrough had been a long time coming and pointed to the work ethic that had carried him to this point. At Aronimink, that work finally produced a major championship and a new name at the center of golf’s depth beyond its biggest stars.