Aaron Rai won the Wanamaker Trophy. He just hasn’t fully believed it yet. 

The 31-year-old English golfer captured his first major championship at the 2026 PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, closing with a final-round 65 to secure a three-stroke victory that immediately etched itself into major championship history, reports Dave Shedloski for Golf Digest.  

But in the days that followed, Rai found himself doing something unexpected for a new major champion: waiting for it to feel real. 

The trophy presentation offered an early hint of what he’d gotten himself into.  

Rai had heard the stories about the Wanamaker Trophy’s legendary size and weight, but nothing quite prepared him for the reality of holding 27 pounds of hardware while smiling for photographers. 

“I was pretty comfortable for probably the first minute or so [holding it for photographs] and then after that I definitely started to feel it burning,” said Rai.  

The win was Rai’s second on the PGA Tour and eighth worldwide, but he was quick to separate this one from everything else in his career. Becoming a major champion, he said, is simply different.  

The evidence has shown up in small, unexpected ways, like being stopped by grocery store shoppers who recognized him in the cereal aisle. 

“I think it took a good few days, I think, for me to really get my head around it. I mean, I don’t think I still have fully,” he said.

There was one more moment that caught him off guard, which was seeing the British royal family acknowledge his victory on social media, something Rai described as a genuine surprise. 

Read the full Golf Digest feature for an inside look at the man behind one of the most memorable major victories in recent memory. 

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