Aaron Rai is now a major winner after tasting PGA Championship success at Aronimink but the Englishman isn’t the only one celebrating.
England’s Aaron Rai won the PGA Championship on Sunday after a brilliant final round. He banked roughly £2.7million for his efforts at Aronimink Golf Club and his caddie will also reap the rewards.
The Wanamaker Trophy was raised aloft by an Englishman for the first time in over a century on Sunday evening, as 31-year-old Rai pieced together a jaw-dropping back nine to win his first major title.
Rai had never finished inside the top-10 at one of golf’s major championships before he started his final round, but showed impressive composure as he played his way into title contention. A 69-footer on the 17th green was the clincher as he finished on nine-under and was crowned champion.
We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time.
The USPGA’s prize fund was increased to £15m this year and Rai pockets around £2.7m. His looper, Jason Timmis, will take home a hefty percentage of this prize money. Caddies typically receive around 10 per cent of a player’s winnings in professional golf, though it is worth noting that this can vary depending on the partnership between the two.
For Timmis, this could mean that Rai’s PGA Championship win has made him richer. Rai has been working with Timmis for seven years, having first linked up in 2019. This windfall is the biggest won by Rai during his career on the PGA Tour, during which he has amassed around £12m in tot£270,000al. His win at Aronimink contributes to nearly a quarter of this.
He last won on Tour at the 2024 Wyndham Championship, where he bagged just over £1m for victory at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro. Rai embraced his wife, Gaurika Bishnoi, after his groundbreaking major success on Sunday and pointed to his family when asked how he pulled it off.
“I think a lot of that has come from upbringing, my mom, my dad, my siblings,” Rai said. “Golf was always a very big part of my life from a very young age. But my mom and my siblings were very fast to continue to reinforce the importance of just being a good person and trying to do the right things away from golf.
“My dad was with me … every day practice-wise, and he really instilled the importance of work and dedication and trying to consistently build just good, strong habits around the game.
“My mom worked extremely hard away from golf. Her jobs, she worked a couple of jobs at one time, at a point in time, and she did a lot of work around the house. My sister took a massive role as well at a young age.
“She had a job from the age of 14, 15. So there was a lot of consistent messaging of hard work, and that was generally the environment that was there at the house. And that was at the golf course as well.”
