PGA Championship winner Aaron Rai doesn’t overthink his swing, and the results speak for themselves.
No golfer on the PGA Tour hit more fairways in 2024 and 2025 than Aaron Rai: 1,597 out of 2,192 – a whopping 73 percent. What’s his advice for better accuracy off the tee? To find balance – not literally, though that’s important, too – rather, balance in approach to the golf swing.
“I try to manage the amount that I look at my swing. It’s important to have an idea of where it’s at, but it’s very easy to overanalyse and look at all the little things,” says Rai, 31, of England, winner of the 2026 PGA Championship among nine international victories. “Even if you fix it on one day, the body might feel different on the next. I also try not to look at other people’s swings too often or too many videos online of different instructors and coaches. You have to find your key components.”
For Rai, balance starts at setup. He plays the ball a little further back than most pros, which creates a little more spin for control and encourages more body rotation. When the ball is too far up in his stance, his body stops turning and his hands start flipping. It’s among a few ways one of golf’s straightest drivers can get wayward.
As he starts his swing, Rai says he wants his lower and upper body, along with the clubhead, turning back
together. If he does it right, the clubface tracks back slightly outside his hands and a bit shut.
“I like seeing the face a little [shut] in the takeaway,” Rai says. “If everything starts back in one piece, it’s promoting my body to work harder to rotate – a good thing.”
As he swings to the top, two words come to mind for Rai: solid and stable. He wants solidity in his right leg, making sure it remains slightly bent to prevent his hips from sliding [above, fourth frame]. And he wants stability in his head movement. He’s fine with it moving a little behind the ball on the backswing but less so with irons. When his hips slide and his head moves, it creates the need for compensations, Rai says. When he’s solid and stable, he says he can turn aggressively though impact and into the follow-through.
“My hips start coming backward a bit,” he says. “The ball’s already gone at that point, so I’m not sure it matters, but it’s something that’s been in my swing for a long time.”
Photograph by John Hudson
