The 2026 PGA Championship had everything: star collapses, impossible pin locations, angry exchanges with fans, LIV-vs.-PGA tension, and a Sunday leaderboard that looked ready to turn into total chaos. And then, through all of it, Aaron Rai delivered the kind of closing stretch that instantly becomes part of major championship history.
Rai’s final-round 65 at Aronimink wasn’t just enough to win his first major championship. It was historic.
Over his final 10 holes, Rai played them in 6-under par, becoming just the third player in modern major championship history to finish that strongly and still win the tournament. The other two names on that list tell you everything you need to know about the company he joined: Cameron Smith at the 2022 Open Championship and Jack Nicklaus during his legendary 1986 Masters victory.
That closing stretch transformed what had been a tense, crowded Sunday into a coronation.
Rai entered the final round chasing, not leading. But while bigger names stumbled around Aronimink’s punishing setup, he got steadier as the pressure mounted. His tournament scores — 70, 69, 67, 65 — made him the first player in PGA Championship history to improve his score in every single round en route to victory.
That almost never happens in major championships because majors are designed to break players down physically and mentally as the week progresses. Instead, Rai got sharper.
The victory also carried broader historical significance for European golf. Rai became the first player representing England to win the PGA Championship since Jim Barnes captured the first two editions of the event in 1916 and 1919. And in the modern era of the four current majors, this is the first season in which Europeans have captured both of the first two majors of the year.
The week, though, will also be remembered for how brutally Aronimink tested the world’s best players.
Players spent much of the championship openly complaining about course setup, particularly the hole locations. Scottie Scheffler called one Friday pin placement among the hardest he had ever seen. Rory McIlroy unraveled late Thursday, then boiled over Sunday during a heated interaction with a fan after a “U-S-A!” chant from the crowd.
And still, amid all the carnage, somebody nearly stole the championship outright.
Kurt Kitayama fired a stunning final-round 63, tying the major championship record for the lowest final round ever recorded. He became just the second player to shoot 63 in the final round of a PGA Championship, joining Brad Faxon in 1995.
For a few hours Sunday afternoon, Kitayama’s charge looked like it might become one of the great major comebacks ever. Instead, it became the final obstacle Rai calmly stepped over on his way to the Wanamaker Trophy.
That’s ultimately what made this PGA Championship memorable.
It wasn’t dominance from start to finish. It wasn’t survival golf. It was escalation. Every hour brought more tension, more volatility, and more opportunities for the tournament to spin sideways.
And when the dust settled, the player standing tallest was the one who improved every single day and played his best golf when the pressure was greatest.
Aaron Rai didn’t just win the PGA Championship.
He closed it like a major champion.