Perhaps it's fitting that the man left standing at the end of the most chaotic PGA Championship in recent history entered the week without a top-15 finish in his major career.
Aaron Rai rose from the pack with some brilliant golf down the stretch Sunday, punctuating a 5-under 65 with an epic 68-foot putt for birdie on No. 17 to pull away from the most bunched leaderboard in tournament history and claim his first major championship at Aronimink.
A star-studded group of chasers featuring the likes of Jon Rahm, Ludvig Aberg, Rory McIlroy, and Xander Schauffele were unable to match Rai shot-for-shot, and the Englishman's victory means Europeans have won the opening two majors of the season for the first time since 1934.
| Position | Players | Total to par | Round 4 score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aaron Rai | -9 | 65 |
| T-2 | Jon Rahm | -6 | 68 |
| T-2 | Alex Smalley | -6 | 70 |
| T-4 | Justin Thomas | -5 | 65 |
| T-4 | Matti Schmid | -5 | 69 |
| T-4 | Ludvig Aberg | -5 | 69 |
| T-7 | Cam Smith | -4 | 68 |
| T-7 | Rory McIlroy | -4 | 69 |
| T-7 | Xander Schauffele | -4 | 69 |
| T-10 | Kurt Kitayama | -3 | 63 |
| T-10 | Chris Gotterup | -3 | 69 |
| T-10 | Justin Rose | -3 | 69 |
| T-10 | Patrick Reed | -3 | 70 |
A day that saw a record 22 men enter within four shots of Alex Smalley's lead was as dramatic as expected, starting early with Kurt Kitayama's record-tying 63 from the fourth group of the day. That showed the chasers what was out there, and Justin Thomas took that challenge to heart to make his run.
Thomas erased a 7-shot deficit at the 2022 PGA Championship to win the event for the second time and looked poised to repeat that feat after a 5-under 65. His 5-under tournament total held up for a long stretch in the afternoon, with nobody at the top of the leaderboard able to make as push.
That changed on the 9th, with Rai's 40-footer for eagle kicking off an electric closing stretch that saw him go 6-under on his final 10 holes to leave the packed leaderboard in his wake.
His victory marks the first PGA Championship claimed by an Englishman since the tournament changed its format to stroke-play, and ends a 10-year run of American champions at the season's second major.
