Aaron Rai carded a closing 64 at the end of a marathon final day of the Wyndham Championship to win his first PGA TOUR title in North Carolina.
On a day when everyone in the field played at least 36 holes due to earlier weather delays, Rai outlasted everybody, starting the day with a 68 and then adding a bogey-free 64 to get to 18 under and finish two shots ahead of Max Greyserman.
The American had a four-shot lead after holing out from 91 yards for an eagle on the 13th but went out of bounds on the next to surrender a quadruple-bogey and sit in a tie for the lead with Rai at 17 under.
In a roller coaster finish, Greyserman then birdied the next but four-putted the 15th for a double-bogey, with Rai adding to five earlier gains with a birdie on the last to give himself some breathing room.
Rai, a Rolex Series champion at the 2020 Scottish Open, has been a Dual Member since the 2022 season after obtaining a PGA TOUR card via the Korn Ferry Tour and had three top tens in his previous four starts entering the Wyndham Championship.
“It truly is a dream come true,” said Rai, who also won the Hong Kong Open to start the 2019 season.” So many people have played a huge role in me being at this point.
"For the last four months, since the end of April, it's been a really good stretch of golf. Very proud and happy with the consistency more than anything else. It's amazing to be here and to win this week but I'm almost just as proud of how consistent the last couple of months have been.
"I didn't really look at the leaderboards as I was going round. I knew the scores going into the fourth round but I thought it would be best not to really look at what was going on during the fourth round. I wasn't aware of what was happening with Max towards the end there.
"I asked my caddie on the 18th tee what the situation was and he knows me pretty well and I trust whatever he says to me. He just said, just focus on playing a good hole here.
Congratulations on your first @PGATOUR win, Aaron 👏🏆 pic.twitter.com/qvfdZGOCnN
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) August 12, 2024
"Then when I walked up to the green I did have a look to see the leaderboard, but until that stage I wasn't aware of what the situation was."
Rai was brilliantly dialled-in with his irons on the front nine, putting approaches inside ten feet on the third and fourth, making a two-putt gain on the fifth and holing from 22 feet on the sixth for four in a row.
A tee-shot to 13 feet on the par-three 12th brought another gain before he kept his cool to play the last in textbook fashion: hitting his approach from the middle of the fairway from 199 yards and leaving himself seven feet for his closing birdie.
Rai's victory sees him join Matthieu Pavon, Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowy and Robert MacIntyre as Dual Member winners on the PGA TOUR this season, along with ISCO Championship winner Harry Hall.
