When Aaron Rai stood over a 68-foot putt on the par-three 17th at Aronimink Golf Club on Sunday evening, the Pennsylvania sun was already washing the course in the low, golden light that often marks the closing acts of a major championship. He held a two-shot lead. No one in contention had birdied the hole all day. The 141st-best putter on Tour over the previous twelve months was not expected to change that.

He did.

The ball tracked, slowed, and dropped. Aronimink erupted. By the time Rai had walked to the 18th tee, the chant had begun. "That’s a PGA champion right there," shouted one voice from the gallery. Within the hour, the 31-year-old from Wolverhampton had signed for a closing five under 65, finished the week on nine under par, and become the first Englishman to win the PGA Championship since Jim Barnes in 1919.

He had also done so wearing two MacWet golf gloves, just as he has since he was eight years old.

The Two-Glove Approach Behind A Major Champion

Rai’s signature has long been the pair of black gloves he pulls on before every full shot. In a sport where convention dictates a single glove on the lead hand, removed for putting and often for short pitches, his preference for two has been a source of curiosity for spectators and commentators alike.

For Rai, it is not a quirk. It is a foundation. He has explained the origin many times, most recently in conversation with Golf Monthly.

"It started when I was 8 years old. I just happened to be given these two gloves, the guy who actually makes them sent a pair over, and I got into the habit of wearing them. Then, a few weeks down the line, my dad forgot to put the two gloves in the bag so I had to play with one. It was terrible. I couldn’t play, I couldn’t feel the grip, so I’ve always stuck with the two gloves ever since."

He does make exceptions. Like most professionals, Rai removes both gloves on the greens to feel the speed of the putter. For bunker shots, he typically wears just one.  Everywhere else, from tee to fairway to rough to pine straw, the pair remains in place.

Why Aaron Rai Trusts MacWet

Rai is a long-standing ambassador for MacWet, the British brand whose Aquatec® micro-fibre gloves were originally developed for equestrian sport before finding a natural home in golf. The technology was designed to do something most golf gloves cannot. Hold a firm grip in the presence of moisture rather than slip away from it.

Aronimink in mid-May offered the full menu of conditions a major can throw at a player. Humid mornings, warm afternoons, and the kind of perspiration that turns a traditional leather glove from an asset into a hazard. Rai’s MacWets did exactly what they were built to do.

This is not a new story for him. His maiden DP World Tour win at the 2018 Hong Kong Open came in tropical humidity. His Scottish Open victory in October 2020 came during the lash of Storm Alex at The Renaissance Club. His maiden PGA Tour win at the 2024 Wyndham Championship came in the heavy, sweat-soaked air of North Carolina in August. Now a major has been added to the list, and the gloves have been there for every one of them.

The Technology Behind The Gloves

MacWet’s Aquatec fabric is engineered from yarn roughly 3,000 times finer than a human hair. When the material meets moisture, whether from rain, perspiration or humidity, its grip improves rather than deteriorates. Touch and feel are retained, which matters enormously to a player like Rai who relies on a low ball flight, precise shaping, and an intimate sense of the clubhead through impact.

It is worth pausing on that final point. Rai is one of the seven shortest players on the PGA Tour off the tee. He has never relied on distance. Accuracy is his currency, and on Sunday at Aronimink he hit every fairway on the back nine. That kind of precision asks a great deal of the connection between hand and grip, which is precisely the connection a MacWet glove is built to preserve.

Choosing The Right MacWet Glove

Rai changes models depending on conditions, and the MacWet range is built around exactly that decision. In warmer, drier weather, he reaches for the MacWet Original Micromesh, a lightweight glove with mesh panels for breathability and a soft Aquatec palm for grip. It is the model he tends to favour for American summer events.

When the temperature drops or the rain arrives, as it so often does at Open Championships, Scottish Opens and European autumn fixtures, Rai switches to the MacWet Winter Climatec. The Climatec adds thermal insulation without compromising the grip technology that defines the brand.

Both come as a pair. Both arrive ready to give the club golfer something close to the same advantage a major champion now relies upon.

Heritage, Humility, And The Long Road To A Major

Rai’s idiosyncrasies do not end with his gloves. He plays a TaylorMade M6 driver from 2019. He tees the ball up with the orange plastic castle tee a weekend twenty-handicapper might recognise. The irons in his bag are covered with neoprene head covers, a habit usually associated with juniors rather than world-class professionals.

The reason for the head covers is among the most affecting stories in golf at the moment. Rai’s father, who emigrated to England from India, gave up his job when his son was young to support his career. His mother emigrated to England from Kenya. Equipment was bought at the limit of what the family could afford, and his father would clean every groove of every iron after each practice session with a pin and baby oil. The head covers were added to protect what had been hard won.

"It started from the age of 4 years old, when my dad used to pay for my equipment. He paid for my membership, paid for my entry fees. It wasn’t money that we really had, to be honest, but he’d always buy me the best clubs. To protect the golf clubs, he thought it would be good to put iron covers on them and I’ve pretty much had iron covers on all my sets ever since, just to kind of appreciate the value of what I have."

It is a habit that explains a great deal about the character of the man who outlasted Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, Ludvig Åberg and Xander Schauffele on Sunday. As McIlroy himself put it after the round, "You won’t find one person on the property who’s not happy for him."

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