[Photo: Sean M. Haffey]
I don’t know about you, but my snail mail thins by the day. I still receive the occasional jury summons, plus a few advertisements and catalogues that are barely worth the paper they’re printed on, but over the last decade, the mailbox flood has become a trickle.
Not for Aaron Rai, though.
After the two-gloved Englishman’s maiden major victory at Aronimink in May, Rai traipsed out to his mailbox one morning to find something very special waiting inside:
A handwritten congratulations letter from the one and only Jack Nicklaus.
Really cool story from Aaron Rai saying he got a letter from Jack Nicklaus in the mail after his PGA win.
— Cameron Jourdan (@Cam_Jourdan) July 14, 2026
"For someone like that to take the time to write to me after the PGA, it definitely shows the class of what Jack is about." pic.twitter.com/9WYylTSOou
“After the PGA, I received a handwritten letter from Jack Nicklaus,” Rai told reporters at Royal Birkdale on Tuesday. “Which was kind of surreal when he opened the mail. For someone like that to take the time to write to me after the PGA, it definitely shows the class of what Jack is about.”
Rai is known as one of the nicest guys and hardest workers on tour, so he deserves all the plaudits, handwritten or not. So kudos to him and also kudos to 86-year-old Jack Nicklaus. Nicklaus could have easily got Rai’s phone number or email, but instead he set pen to paper because where he comes from, that still means something. Throughout human history, letters have been one of the most important, impactful and intimate forms of communication. Unfortunately, they’re going extinct even faster than literacy, but as long as Jack is around, he’ll keep the candle lit and the quill at the ready.
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