Aaron Rai broke a 107-year-old drought at Aronimink after his 5-under-par 65 to lift the Wanamaker Trophy, and even the game’s most divisive figure stopped to tip his hat. Greg Norman, the former LIV Golf CEO who spent years at war with the PGA of America’s orbit, took to Instagram on Sunday night to congratulate Rai on his first major, and the message was anything but brief.
“Congratulations to the champion, Aaron Rai, on your first major,” Norman wrote on his account. “Your humility, passion, love, and respect for what you have and what you got here is a breath of fresh air. May success continue to flood your way.”
Rai became the first player of Indian heritage to win a major and the first English-born golfer to win the PGA Championship since Jim Barnes in 1919. He did it as a 290-to-1 long shot entering the week, which is the biggest odds for a major winner in at least two decades.
Norman’s warm wish for Rai carries deep weight. His tenure, defined by confrontations with the PGA Tour and the broader golf establishment, ended when LIV Golf ousted him before his contract expired last January. He also extended some appreciation for the tour in the caption.
“Compliments to the PGA of America, an organization I hold in the highest regard,” he wrote. “The PGA of Australia gave me the opportunity to enter this extraordinary world of golf, not only as sport, but as business, a consumer platform, and a lifelong relationship builder, connecting everyone from presidents and CEOs to everyday golfers around the globe.”
The praise of the PGA of America is not incidental. For most of the past four years, Norman was the person most associated with challenging the structure those organizers represent. As recently as January this year, he was still publicly clarifying that his “notion of hating the PGA Tour is not true.” A line that he needed to clarify, precisely because so many people assumed otherwise.
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Further, Norman’s Instagram post takes it a step forward as he extends appreciation for the tour. It is also important to note here that there is no obvious catalyst for it. There is no recent deal, no formal reconciliation, and no public handshake between him and the PGA of America that would explain the praise. However, since stepping away from LIV, Norman has spoken at length about the “headwinds” he faced and the personal grief the role at LIV cost him. Yet, he has largely directed his public energy towards LIV’s future rather than mending fences with the establishment.
Recently, Norman also praised the new PGA Tour CEO, Brian Rolapp. He believes Brian will bring a fresher, more modern perspective that could bring about positive change for the tour. The tribute note on Instagram went well beyond a congratulatory note. Norman’s caption ran into several paragraphs on the economics of the game, citing an industry generating approximately $102 billion in direct annual spending and more than $226 billion in total economic impact.
Those figures are not his own. They come from the 2023 National Golf Foundation study commissioned by the American Golf Industry Coalition, the very body that includes the PGA of America and the NGCOA, both of which he cited. With LIV behind him, he is back to running the Greg Norman company full-time. It is a business built on course design, real estate, and apparel, three revenue streams that flow directly through the club and facility ecosystem.
With that said, Norman is not the only one to praise Rai. Rory McIlroy said after the round, “You won’t find one person on the property who’s not happy for him.” Xander Schauffele also called him an “all-world gentleman.”
Rai himself addressed the PGA’s role in the growing game in his post-round remarks, as he said, “Golf is an amazing game. It teaches you so many things, and it teaches you so much humility and discipline and absolute hard work because nothing is ever given in this game, no matter what level you’re playing, no matter what course you’re playing on. I think the sport should be very proud of the ambassadors that represent the PGA Tour and represent the PGA of America.”
The road that led to Aronimink Golf Club
Aaron Rai’s win has broken year-long records on the PGA Tour championship, and of course, his journey was not the easiest. He has often talked about his parents, who worked multiple jobs to support his studies. In fact, Rye’s introduction to the sport was an accident.
He hurt himself playing with a hockey stick as a toddler. In an effort to make things safer, his mother went to buy plastic sticks and returned with plastic golf clubs instead. And right from there, he won his first tournament at age four. Further, he practiced putting on a purpose-built green in the back of his garden, honed his skills at the Three Hammers Golf Complex in Kuman, and set a Guinness World Record at 15 for holing 207 consecutive 10-foot putts. He then turned professional at 17 without ever playing college golf.
Rai won £886 in his first professional year in 2014, but struggled to keep up with players hitting it further. The Korn Ferry equivalent of the DP World Tour was his next step; from there, he gradually built his career. He won on the DP World Tour at the Scottish Open and in the Hong Kong Open before eventually landing his PGA Tour card.
However, the weekend at the PGA Championship has been wonderful, as he won by three shots over Jon Rahm and Alex Smalley, earning $3.69 million and a five-year exemption into the Masters, U.S. Open, The Open Championship, and the Player Championship.
As Norman says, Aaron’s humility, passion, and respect certainly describe him as a player who has spent his entire career earning them.
