DUBLIN, Ohio — Aaron Rai finally returned home to Florida as a major champion and it didn’t take long for him to realize how life was different.
One clue was a trip to the grocery store.
“I wasn’t even in golf clothes,” Rai said Tuesday at the Memorial, his first tournament since winning the PGA Championship at Aronimink.
“Just a couple of customers that were doing their regular grocery shopping just came over and congratulated me on the PGA and the performance,” he said. “So yeah, that was very unexpected — and different.”
When he did get back to his regular practice routine at the TPC Sawgrass, he said it took him longer than usual to get from the parking lot to the range because of so many people who stopped him. That, too, was different.
Most meaningful, however, was when his father came to Ponte Vedra Beach from London. Rai said only when they talked about the week and what he had done did it start to sink in.
And then there was the hug they shared.
“My dad, he’s a very proud man. He doesn’t show a huge amount of emotions,” Rai said. “But the first evening that I saw him his hug was a little bit different. His smile was a little bit different. We sat and we spoke for probably a good couple of hours or so.
“I could probably hear it more from what I associate with how he is normally and how he was during those first couple of days,” he said. “So, I think, yeah, that definitely held a lot of weight for me internally.”