Aaron Rai’s Wyndham Championship win ‘a dream come true’

Greensboro — Aaron Rai just kept believing and kept making pars, so by the time a gruelling day of golf at the Wyndham Championship was coming to a close on Sunday, the Englishman was right where he needed to be.

In the PGA Tour’s regular season finale, Rai produced a steady finish for a final-round 64 to win on tour for the first time.

“Truly a dream come true,” he said.

Rai’s two-stroke victory, which came by playing 36 holes on the final day at Sedgefield Country Club, will be largely associated with Max Greyserman’s misfortune as a four-shot lead evaporated on the back nine with dusk fast approaching.

Rai’s first title on the PGA Tour came in his 89th appearance. He finished at 18-under-par 262 after earlier posting a third-round 68. He was bogey-free for the final round, sinking a nearly 2m  birdie putt on the last hole.

“I felt pretty calm,” he said. “I knew the situation.”

Rai, who moved to 25th in the FedExCup standings, had only two birdies across the last 12 holes.

“I did just a good job sticking to what we do well,” Rai said.

Greyserman (66, 69), bidding for his first tour victory, was second at 16 under. JJ Spaun (66, 64) and Japan’s Ryo Hisatsune (64, 67) tied for third at 15 under.

“I knew there was a lot of pressure all day,” Greyserman said. “I think I just need to take that away that I know how to play in those situations.”

Greyserman had two eagles in the final round, including one from 82m out on the fairway on the 13th hole. But his quadruple-bogey 8 on No 14 resulted in a four-shot lead vanishing. His tee shot bounced off a cart path and went out of bounds, and things deteriorated from there.

“Played really, really well this week. Obviously, stuff happens sometimes in golf that it’s not meant to be,” said Greyserman, who vowed to get right back to work.

In a self-assessment, he said he made mental miscalculations after the wayward tee shot that cost him extra strokes on that hole. But he recovered to regain the lead on the next hole with a birdie. Then came a four-putt double-bogey on the par-3 16th to give the lead back to Rai, who was playing in the group in front of him.

Greyserman, 29, was runner-up two weeks earlier in the 3M Open. He notched his fourth top-10 result of the year.

“Hopefully, it will be my time next time,” he said.

Greyserman’s third-round 66 put him three strokes in front of amateur Luke Clanton, who rallied with a career-low 62, entering the fourth round.

Greyserman, who played collegiately about an hour away at Duke, had gone 56 consecutive holes without a bogey until the fourth hole of the final round. He responded moments later with an eagle on the next hole. That was his second eagle in a nine-hole stretch, posting one on No 15 of the third round.

Second-round leader Matt Kuchar (70 third round) was at 11 under for the tournament when he chose not to finish the final hole because of darkness. He returned to the course early on Monday to play his 72nd hole, to finish in a 10-way tie for 12th place — seven strokes behind Rai.

Since the dawn of the FedExCup playoffs in 2007, Kuchar had qualified for every edition of the postseason, but he needed to win the tournament to play in the coming week’s FedEx St Jude Classic.

Field Level Media