Aaron Rai is in position to win for the first time on the PGA Tour at the 2024 Rocket Mortgage Classic, a breakthrough that could also make him one of the rare pros to do it while still using iron covers on his clubs. For Rai, that unusual habit goes back to a childhood in which every piece of equipment mattered.
Rai said he grew up in a working-class family and that golf was always expensive. He started playing at age 4, and said his father paid for his equipment, memberships and entry fees even when money was tight. “I grew up in very much a working-class family, and golf has always been a very expensive game,” Rai said. “I started from the age of 4 years old, and my dad used to pay for the equipment, pay for my memberships, my entry fees. And it wasn’t money that we really had, to be honest, but he’d always buy me the best clubs.”
That care became part of the game itself. Rai said that when he was about 7 or 8, his father bought him a set of Titleist 690 MBs that cost about 800 to 1,000 pounds at the time, a large outlay for a child’s clubs. “I cherished them,” Rai said. After practice, his father would clean every groove with a pin and baby oil, and to protect the clubs, the family put iron covers on them. Rai said he has pretty much kept iron covers on all of his sets ever since, “just to appreciate the value of what I have, and it all started with that first set.”
The covers themselves are sleeves or molded plastic or rubber materials designed to protect irons from damage, but most golfers think they are unnecessary and often mock the people who use them. Rai has never sounded bothered by that. He also plays with two golf gloves, another detail that sets him apart even as he stands on the verge of his first PGA Tour title. The result in Detroit matters now because a player with a distinctly old-school routine is one round from a career-changing win, and because a longtime quirk could suddenly be associated with a breakthrough instead of a joke.
If Rai finishes the job, the win would do more than put his name on a PGA Tour trophy. It would turn a habit born from scarcity into part of the story of a champion.
