When Aaron Rai walked into Aronimink as the 44th-ranked player in the world and walked out as a major champion, the coverage focused on the two gloves, the iron covers and the 109-year wait for an English winner. The most interesting story, in Rai's own telling, sits further back: a customised junior course in Wolverhampton, two coaches who pretty much raised him alongside his parents and a worn-out stack of Tiger Woods VHS tapes.
The new PGA Champion devoted long stretches of his winner's press conference at Aronimink to the people and the methodology that built him. Two names came up repeatedly: Andrew Proudman and Piers Ward, the duo behind the Me and My Golf brand that is itself a fixture of the digital instruction era.
"I've known Andrew since I was four years old," Rai said. "He used to work in the pro shop of the driving range that me and my dad used to go to. I think I was four, he was 18. That was even before he'd turned professional. I met Piers when I was probably eight or nine years old. We grew up in the same city. They started to coach me very soon after that, probably 10 years old."
The pair's role in Rai's career extends far beyond technical work. He pointedly refused to label them as coaches at all.
"They've been so much more to me than that from a young age, also as a teenager, and also on this journey as a professional golfer," Rai said. "They've been like my mentors, my big brothers. They've almost been like family to me."
One anecdote from six years ago at the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth captured the depth of the working relationship. Ward stayed on the putting green with Rai until 11:30 pm on a Tuesday night, then drove two and a half hours back to Wolverhampton without complaint.
"He was just with me the whole day," Rai said. "They just go above and beyond for me in every single way. They've played a huge part in this trophy and a huge part in my development as a golfer."
The other system that built Rai was less conventional. His father, who quit his job to support Aaron's golf when his son was four or five, designed a customised course set-up that grew with his son. The Aronimink champion described it on Sunday with the air of someone who knew, even at the time, that this was unusual.
"Up until the age of around 12 years old, I used to play off a customised course length, which gradually got longer and longer every year from the age of seven to 12," Rai said. "12 years old was the first time that I actually played off ladies tees. Before that I was playing off the fairways and trying to make the course short enough for me to score par or better even as an eight, nine, 10-year-old."
The idea, Rai said, was borrowed from the Wee Wonders junior tournament system and what his father observed at the US Kids World Championship when Aaron qualified at age eight. The method had a side effect: Rai did not mix with other junior golfers in the way many British amateurs do.
"My dad thought it was a great idea, but naturally that kept me away from club golf, medal golf," Rai said. "I would still play in junior events, but only in my age group. Just to really protect what we were trying to work on and what we were trying to build towards. And then when I was about 13 or 14, I was long enough to be able to play off the men's tees. That's when I started to play a little bit of club golf. But again, I think by that age, I'd gotten so used to practising a certain way."
Running underneath all of it was Tiger Woods. Rai watched a small collection of VHS tapes of Woods's US Amateur wins and early professional career two or three times a week through his childhood.
"I don't think we still have the tapes," Rai said. "But I used to watch them a hell of a lot, probably at least two-three times a week if not more. He was very much someone that I really idolised. I just remember being in awe of just watching all of the things that he could do. To have my name even with him on this trophy is incredible, really."
The rest of Team Rai now includes sponsor Shiva Ramdoree, who paid for Aaron's private education, physio Andrew Caldwell of Active Therapy and analyst John Graham. But the system at the centre of it all is still Wolverhampton-shaped: two coaches who started as childhood mentors, a father-designed junior course and a stack of Tiger tapes long since lost.
"Tiger was the main one, really," Rai said when asked about other heroes. "I used to love soccer as well growing up. Support Manchester United. Cristiano Ronaldo was incredible for a long time. So I'd probably say Tiger Woods and Ronaldo growing up."