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Rai does it his way to win PGA, pointless Aronimink criticism, player grades and an important message
The 2026 PGA Championship was a game of patience and precision. In an era where picking apart golf courses, even major championship ones, with a flavor of violence has become the expectation, there was a welcome shock factor seeing a someone like Aaron Rai emerge from the pack of certified killers to get his hands on the Wanamaker Trophy.
Rai was an unexpected winner. Even halfway through the final round at Aronimink Golf Club, when nobody else in the field was able to get a hand on the door to slam it shut, the Englishman stepped up and did so with authority. Classy, tasteful, and respectful authority, but authority nonetheless.
The golf course itself and the setup took criticism from both fans and players throughout the week, and while the debates back and forth are woven into the rhetoric of every major championship, it felt pointless at Aronimink. We’ll explain why down below.
With such a jam-packed leaderboard and so many big-name players in contention over the weekend, player grades are in order. Spoiler: Ludvig Aberg’s grade is putrid.
This is Par Talk, a weekly read to get you caught up on all the happenings that took place in professional golf that you need to know. You can follow Mark on X @itismarkharris and email him at [email protected]
The 2026 PGA Championship was expected to be a test that favored long hitters with the bomb and gauge strategy to be deployed by everyone who has it in their bag. While longer hitters, including the likes of Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy, Ludvig Aberg, and Justin Thomas, were in the mix come late Sunday afternoon, Rai reminded the world that hitting fairways and greens, and letting a scorching-hot putter go to work, can still get the job done just about anywhere.
Rai entered the week ranked 160th on the PGA Tour in average driving distance and finished the week ranked 66th in driving distance among the 82 players who made the cut. He was forced to slowly carve up Aronimink instead of aggressively picking it apart, and he did so better than anyone else in the field.
The Englishman closed out the week ranked second in strokes gained: approach, fourth in driving accuracy, hit 74% of his greens in regulation, and led the entire field with 22 birdies or better.
While Rai’s 70-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole will understandably garner tons of attention for days to come, his birdie on the drivable par-4 13th hole was, up to this point, the defining moment of his career.
After driving it into a greenside bunker, Rai was left with a 40-yard shot that most players holding a one-shot lead would play with extreme caution. He chose to be aggressive, however, and fly his golf ball onto a shelf where disaster was lurking, yet walked off the green with a birdie and a two-shot advantage.
Rai played his final 10 holes in six-under par before signing for a final-round 65, his lowest score in a major championship by two strokes.
The 31-year-old is known as being among the nicest and most humble players in professional golf, but inside the ropes on Sunday, he was as mean as they come. With his victory, Rai became the first Englishman to hoist the Wanamaker Trophy since Jim Barnes won the original tournament back in 1919.
Maybe we see Rai back in contention at a major championship soon; maybe he never sees the first page of a major leaderboard again. Regardless of what the future holds, he seized the moment at Aronimink on a Sunday in May and entered golf’s history book.
The media — both those watching from home and those with boots on the ground — could not have been more wrong about expectations of how the golf course was going to play throughout the week than they were at Aronimink.
That is not an indictment of anyone, either. I think it’s more of a reflection of how our default setting has become “the long hitters will climb to the top, separate themselves, and scores will be shockingly low.”
I predicted the winning score to be 17-under myself, and thought that was on the more conservative side, so Rai’s 9-under total was a surprise, and a pleasant one at that.
With scores being on the high side and the leaderboard remaining extremely crowded at the top — there were 21 players within four of the lead heading into Sunday — the discourse began that the setup of the golf course was poor.
Shane Lowry, who was never in contention, said the course “has been set up pretty poorly” after the third round. Rory McIlroy explained that the lack of separation on the leaderboard is typically “a sign of not a great setup.” Scottie Scheffler said that he had never seen tougher pin locations in his entire career.
On the flip side of that coin, you have fans at home, enjoying seeing the best players in the world struggle to make birdies on a golf course that played just over 7,100 yards each of the final two rounds.
Without getting too into the weeds, I think the overall consensus of the situation is straightforward.
It’s not the responsibility of golf fans to worry about whether the players love or hate a golf course setup. Most fans seemed to enjoy Aronimink because it is entertaining to see the best players look confused on a golf course. In that same light, McIlroy, Lowry, or any other player is absolutely entitled to share their opinions of a setup, and outside of an egregious statement, shouldn’t take flak. They’re the ones playing the golf course with millions of dollars on the line.
This leads us to a PSA: It is totally acceptable to say you enjoyed this year’s PGA Championship. It was quirky and fun. It resembled a typical U.S. Open more than a typical PGA and it was enjoyable seeing an old Donald Ross track baffle players. And most importantly, it was a great test.
We’re constantly screaming for the best players to be tested more often, and just because it came at a PGA Championship that most expected to be a birdie fest doesn’t mean it should be disparaged.
Aaron Rai: He won the golf tournament…by three. A+
Jon Rahm: Nobody knew what version of Rahm we’d get at Aronimink entering the week. After a T-38 finish at the Masters and with his future in golf up in the air as the Saudis pull funding from LIV Golf, the Spaniard could have no-showed and pouted while doing so. Instead, he had a noticeably good attitude throughout the week and finished T-2 after a 67-68 weekend.
He did leave a couple of shots out there on Sunday, however, and still carries incredibly high expectations. B
JON RAHM APOLOGIZES AFTER HITTING VOLUNTEER WITH FLYING DIVOT AT PGA CHAMPIONSHIP: ‘INEXCUSABLE’
Ludvig Aberg: His final round 69 may as well have been a 79. After essentially going through the motions in his opening nine holes yet still being firmly in contention, a three-putt from 34-feet on the 10th hole ended his day while serving as a great representation for Aberg these days.
He has every physical tool to be in the conversation as the best player in the world, but it’s clear that between the ears, he’s battling and losing. It feels like he’s struggling to find the balance of caring too much and caring too little. He also needs to throw the blade putter into an inferno and start putting with a mallet. C-, even if he did finish T-4.
Alex Smalley: When you grab a two-shot lead after 54 holes at a major championship, you’re doing a lot of things right. His Sunday played out as expected with nervy shots early on and the dreaded double bogey coming at the sixth, but he hung in there a lot better than most predicted, myself included, to begin the day.
Shooting even par in the final round wasn’t enough to get it done, but he probably would have taken that score to begin the day. A- to go along with his T-2 finish.
Cameron Smith: He’s back (maybe, hopefully). Oh, how I missed watching Cam Smith stand over any putt on the property and thinking he’s going to drain it. After six consecutive missed cuts in majors, it was a ton of fun seeing the Aussie back in the mix and finishing T-7. If he gets the driver figured out, he could turn into a factor sooner rather than later again at majors. A-
Rory McIlroy: McIlroy could have packed it in after shooting four-over in the opening round, but instead answered back with rounds of 67-66-69. The one knock against McIlroy, and I believe a justified one, was that he brought exactly zero juice to the course on Sunday. It happens, but not too often on a major championship Sunday when beginning the round just three shots back of the lead. The game was good, nowhere close to great. Two birdies on Sunday, pars on both Par 5s, and a bogey on a 299-yard Par 4. A T-7 finish gets a C+ all things considered.
Scottie Scheffler: From tee to green, Scheffler played well enough to win the golf tournament, but when he stepped on the green, he looked nothing like the No. 1 player in the world. For the week, he finished 72nd out of 82 players who made the cut in strokes gained: putting. A very forgettable T-14. C
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Supreme Court Delivers Emergency Decision – It’s Finally Happening
President Donald Trump scored another significant legal victory Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court sided with his administration in a case challenging controversial Biden-era energy regulations that critics say would have reduced consumer choice and driven popular appliances out of the marketplace.
The ruling marks the latest setback for former President Joe Biden’s regulatory agenda and comes as the Trump administration continues working to roll back federal rules that conservatives argue placed unnecessary burdens on businesses and American consumers.
In *American Gas Association v. Department of Energy*, the Supreme Court vacated a lower court ruling that had upheld Biden administration regulations targeting non-condensing furnaces and commercial water heaters. The decision sends the case back for further review and opens the door for the Trump administration to pursue a different approach.
At the center of the dispute were Department of Energy efficiency standards that industry groups argued would effectively eliminate certain categories of gas-powered appliances by making compliance nearly impossible.
The American Gas Association and a coalition of trade organizations challenged the regulations, contending that the federal government had exceeded its authority and ignored statutory protections designed to preserve consumer choice.
Solicitor General John Sauer, representing the Trump administration, argued that federal law does not permit regulators to wipe out entire classes of products through aggressive efficiency mandates.
“The Department may not adopt standards that effectively eliminate from the market products that have distinct ‘performance characteristics,’” Solicitor General John Sauer wrote in a brief to the high court.
The Supreme Court ultimately agreed that the lower court should reconsider its ruling, delivering an important win for businesses, manufacturers, and consumers who opposed the regulations.
The Trump administration has already indicated that it intends to revisit the rules entirely.
“The Department has determined that the rules at issue are factually and legally flawed, and the agency is considering a new rulemaking in which it would correct those errors,” Sauer wrote.
The decision represents another major blow to Biden’s environmental and energy agenda, which frequently sought to use federal agencies to push stricter efficiency standards across a broad range of household products and appliances.
The legal victory comes just days after Republicans in the House of Representatives approved legislation targeting another Biden-era regulation that became a symbol of government overreach for many Americans.
Lawmakers voted 226-197 to pass the Saving Homeowners from Overregulation with Exceptional Rinsing Act, commonly known as the SHOWER Act.
The legislation attracted support from 11 Democrats and aims to reverse restrictions affecting multi-nozzle shower systems.
Republicans argued that Biden administration regulations unnecessarily reduced water pressure by limiting the combined flow rate of multiple shower heads connected to a single fixture.
Representative Russell Fry of South Carolina, who introduced the legislation, framed the issue as one of personal freedom and consumer choice.
“Washington bureaucrats have gone too far in dictating what happens in Americans’ own homes,” said Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC) who sponsored the legislation.
“This is about defending consumer choice, pushing back on regulatory overreach, and standing up for commonsense policy,” Fry added.
Supporters of the legislation argued that the rule reflected a broader pattern of federal agencies attempting to regulate everyday aspects of American life.
“It seems like the Democrats want to tax you out of existence and overregulate you,” said Rep. John McGuire (R-VA). “So, this is a step in the right direction. Less regulation.”
The SHOWER Act would permanently codify an executive order signed by President Trump that restored a more consumer-friendly interpretation of federal law. Under Trump’s order, each nozzle in a multi-head shower system is treated individually rather than having all nozzles combined under a single flow-rate limit.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie praised the legislation as a practical solution that returns decision-making power to consumers.
“By codifying how different nozzles are categorized, the SHOWER Act offers a commonsense fix that will allow households to choose what meets their needs, not what Washington mandates,” said Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY) chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Fry echoed those concerns and argued that the Biden administration’s approach had become a symbol of excessive federal interference.
He said, “The SHOWER Act reaffirms that each nozzle is a shower head — plain and simple — and that homeowners, not the federal government, should decide how much water pressure they want.”
Taken together, the Supreme Court’s ruling and the House vote represent major victories for President Trump’s broader effort to reduce federal regulations, expand consumer choice, and rein in what supporters view as years of bureaucratic overreach by Washington agencies.
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Trump Sends Haters Into Full Meltdown With Who He Brought To NBA Game
President Donald Trump made a high-profile appearance Monday night at Madison Square Garden as the New York Knicks hosted Game 3 of the NBA Finals, bringing national attention to an already historic evening for New York City.
The Knicks entered the game with a commanding 2-0 series lead over the San Antonio Spurs and stood just two victories away from capturing their first NBA championship in decades. The matchup marked the first NBA Finals game played at Madison Square Garden since 1999, creating enormous excitement throughout the city.
Security around the arena was significantly heightened as President Trump attended the game alongside members of his administration, close advisers, and longtime allies. The increased security presence came just one day after six people were injured during a stabbing incident at nearby Penn Station, located directly beneath Madison Square Garden.
The president arrived to a packed arena and watched the game from a private suite alongside a number of prominent administration officials and advisers.
Among those reportedly attending with the president were:
Sec. Sean Duffy
Sec. Doug Burgum
Administrator Lee Zeldin
Deputy COS Dan Scavino
Jared Kushner
Envoy Steve Witkoff
Walt Nauta
Boris Epshteyn
Natalie Harp
🔥 BREAKING: PRESIDENT TRUMP just WALKED OUT to look over the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden
There he is, 47 becomes the FIRST US sitting president to attend the Finals in history 🇺🇸
The man is peak New York, in his element! pic.twitter.com/4ZFo616Z7m
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 9, 2026
The appearance highlighted Trump’s continued visibility on the national stage while also underscoring his deep connection to New York City, where he built his business career long before entering politics.
Meanwhile, as the president attended one of the biggest sporting events of the year, he continued drawing attention to another issue that has become a central focus of his administration: election integrity.
Trump has repeatedly criticized California’s election system as state officials continue counting ballots from last week’s primary elections. The prolonged counting process has reignited debate over election administration and voter confidence in the nation’s most populous state.
The controversy intensified after U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli disclosed that the Department of Justice has spent more than a year attempting to review California’s voter registration records.
“For over a year, the Department of Justice has been trying to audit California’s voter rolls,” Essayli said.
“Federal law gives the Attorney General the authority to review state voter files and confirm that only eligible U.S. citizens are voting in federal elections,” he added.
The dispute comes as California election officials continue processing large numbers of ballots days after polls closed. Unlike many states that report nearly complete election results within hours, California’s system routinely requires days or even weeks to finalize outcomes.
The lengthy process has fueled concerns among many voters who question why election results remain unresolved long after Election Day.
Essayli also highlighted several aspects of California’s voter registration policies that have attracted attention from federal officials.
Among the forms of identification accepted for certain voter registration purposes are gym membership cards, employer identification cards, credit and debit cards, prescription drug labels, and insurance cards.
Critics argue that such policies deserve closer scrutiny, while supporters maintain that safeguards are already in place to protect election integrity.
The issue has also renewed discussion surrounding the SAVE America Act, legislation supported by many Republicans that would establish nationwide proof-of-citizenship requirements for federal voter registration.
California officials continue to defend the state’s election system and insist that existing safeguards adequately protect the voting process. They also maintain that there is no evidence that widespread non-citizen voting has affected election outcomes.
Nevertheless, the Justice Department’s ongoing efforts suggest that federal scrutiny of California’s election practices is likely to continue in the months ahead.
As President Trump watched the Knicks pursue a championship before a national audience, the broader debate over election security, voter roll maintenance, and ballot-counting procedures remained front and center in American politics.
For the administration, both issues reflect themes that have become central to Trump’s presidency: public safety, government accountability, and restoring confidence in institutions that many Americans believe deserve greater transparency.
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Iran Makes Shocking Admission About Trump’s Strike On Ayatollah
New details released by Iran’s own foreign minister are shedding light on the operation that eliminated Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and reshaped the balance of power in the Middle East.
The account, offered by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi during a televised interview, provides one of the clearest descriptions yet of the strike that launched Operation Epic Fury. According to counterterrorism experts, the remarks serve as powerful evidence that the joint U.S.-Israeli operation was not designed to indiscriminately destroy an entire complex but instead to surgically target the leadership at the center of Iran’s regime.
Araghchi revealed that he survived the February 28 strike because he was located in a different section of Khamenei’s compound when the attack occurred.
“Well, the building we were sitting in was targeted, but the wing we were in remained intact while the other wing of the building was destroyed,” Araghchi said in an interview that aired June 4 on the Lebanon-based, Hezbollah-backed Al Mayadeen television network.
The revelation immediately drew attention from military analysts, who pointed to the extraordinary accuracy required to destroy one section of a heavily protected compound while leaving another standing.
According to Araghchi, Khamenei was in his office at the time of the attack. Other officials inside portions of the compound also survived because they were not located in the targeted area.
Dr. Omar Mohammed, a counterterrorism expert and director of the Antisemitism Research Initiative at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, said the description confirms what many military observers suspected from the beginning.
“In the Arabic version, Araghchi says he was in a different wing of the compound, briefing another official, and his wing survived while the leader’s office was destroyed,” Mohammed explained.
Araghchi also disclosed that he had arrived at the compound for a meeting related to negotiations in Geneva and indicated that Khamenei was expected to be present in his office according to standard procedures.
Based on those details, Mohammed argued that the operation demonstrated an unprecedented level of intelligence gathering and precision targeting.
“They did not flatten a building; they took one wing and left the one next to it standing. That is President Trump’s whole doctrine in a single strike — he does not want a war of occupation, he wants to show the United States can reach the center of a hostile regime with precision and then offer it a way out,” Mohammed said.
Military officials later confirmed that the strike involved Israeli aircraft employing dozens of precision-guided munitions alongside advanced air-launched ballistic missiles. The attack reportedly killed Khamenei, Defense Minister Amir Nasirzadeh, IRGC Commander Mohammed Pakpour, and several additional senior security officials.
President Trump later publicly acknowledged U.S. involvement in the operation.
“He was unable to avoid our intelligence and highly sophisticated tracking systems, and, working closely with Israel, there was not a thing he or the other leaders killed alongside him could do,” the president wrote.
Mohammed believes the strike sent a message that Tehran should have immediately understood.
“Iran was handed the clearest message an adversary can get — we can reach your leader in his own office, and here is the off-ramp,” Mohammed noted. “A rational state takes the exit. Tehran did the opposite. It fired on Israel, killed a civilian in Bahrain, struck Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, and closed the Strait of Hormuz, setting off a global energy crisis. The surgical strike was American. The months-long war that followed was Iran’s choice.”
Following Khamenei’s death, leadership passed to his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, a transition that Mohammed believes revealed deeper contradictions within Iran’s political system.
“In Arabic, Araghchi calls the new leader ‘the young Khamenei in place of the elderly Khamenei.’ That is the language of a monarchy, not a republic of clerics,” Mohammed observed. “They are rewriting the theology on air to fit a son who lacks the religious rank, who was wounded in the same strike and who then vanished for weeks. A revolution that came to power by ending a monarchy is handing the throne from father to son.”
For many analysts, the operation has become a defining example of President Trump’s national security philosophy: use overwhelming precision to neutralize threats, avoid prolonged military occupations, and leave adversaries with a clear opportunity to de-escalate.
“The real story is not that Iran is strong,” Mohammed continued. “It was shown the precision of American power and the door was held open, and it chose to widen the war instead.”
Araghchi’s account appears to reinforce what American and Israeli officials have maintained from the start. The strike was not an act of indiscriminate destruction. It was a carefully planned operation aimed directly at the leadership of one of America’s most persistent adversaries, demonstrating both the reach and precision of modern U.S. military capabilities.
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