Aaron Rai's Phenomenal Rise in the 2024 PGA Season
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00:00For right is a season where he's played phenomenally well, especially in the summer, but a phenomenal
00:08ball striker, you know, what was an understatement. It really is somehow still an understatement
00:13with how well he's played is, I mean, just kind of taking a stock of, of the ways improved
00:17because he's always been a good ball striker, but really just making some, some clutch putts
00:21down the stretch. I know he's not like the greatest putter on tour, but just making putts
00:24when he needs to, it's been a huge improvement and now rolling with some momentum into the
00:28Venice cup playoffs. Like, well, what are you seeing from him this year? That is really
00:31kind of taking him to the next level. The reason why early in the year that I started
00:35to do more recon on air dry was because I had an opportunity to watch him at the Sony
00:40open this year. And I got moved to his group on a Thursday or Friday. He was playing with
00:45Austin Eckrode. So two players that have had nice years, they were both feeding off each
00:49other playing well that day. And for whatever reason, it was a shot on the second hole and
00:55the wind had just kicked up a storm was kind of brewing and Aaron ride laid back on this
01:00second hole and, and pulled, I thought it was probably a four iron hit this up and really
01:05the second hole at Sony, you're hitting three iron nine iron into this hole or three wood
01:10wedge.
01:11And so he's hitting iron off the tee and then hitting four iron into the screen, which nobody
01:14ever is hitting four iron into the screen. And he hits this absolute stripe right at
01:20the hole. And I was like, man, what am I, am I missing something here? Like that was
01:25just absolutely great. And he hit it well the rest of the day and should have had a
01:30better week if it didn't put it well. And that's when I started noticing the trend of
01:34Aaron Ryan, which is okay. He makes a ton of cuts. He tries to get himself in contention,
01:42but the putter always seems to kind of hold him back. So I think as the year went on,
01:47the big, big breakthrough for him was at the rocket mortgage. He had just gone in and
01:52met with John Graham, got some work done with his putting and on greens that are Poanna
01:57that were bumpy, maybe not the best putting surface that guys have for making tons of
02:03putts on the year. Aaron Ryan goes and just starts hooping and he started making pot after
02:07pot at rocket mortgage. And then really through the rest of summer, the John deer was another
02:12week. He played really well, really just any week in the summer. You turn on the TV
02:17and Aaron Rye was on the front page of the leaderboard. So it wasn't surprising to see
02:22him win because it felt like he had played well enough throughout the year to have already
02:26won. And I thought the best thing that I heard on the broadcast was from Trevor Emelman.
02:33He said the ball striking stats. When you talk about strokes gain, he named three players.
02:39He said, you know, this is not surprised. These three guys are tee to green. The best
02:42players. You got Scotty Scheffler, Xander Shafley and Rory McIlroy. He said number four
02:47on that list. Aaron Ryan. Wow.