When Aaron Rai drives down Magnolia Lane to make his Masters Tournament debut next week, he will be celebrating the realisation of a childhood dream.
It was 20 years ago that a ten-year-old Rai, watching on television, saw Tiger Woods defeat Chris DiMarco in a play-off to win his fourth Green Jacket.
That Masters Sunday will always be remembered for Woods’ incredible chip-in on the 16th – most of us in our life had never seen anything like that – but Rai’s first Masters moment came about an hour later.
“The putt that he made on the play-off hole on number 18, that’s probably my earliest memory,” he said of Woods’ 15-foot right-to-lefter for birdie.
“I remember going to the golf course the next day with my dad and we were on the first green and I think I said to dad, ‘if I had that putt on 18, do you think I would have made it?’.
“And I remember him saying ‘yes, you would have’. That was something that I believed and that made me feel great at the time.”
It was dad Amrik who bought Rai his clubs and cleaned them with baby oil and a pin, prompting the use of head covers, equipment that Rai still uses to this day to remind him of the value of things.
While Amrik and mother Dalvir were the first members of Team Rai, it was not long after watching Woods win in 2005 that coaches Andrew Proudman and Piers Ward came on board and they were joined around 15 years ago by physio Andrew Caldwell.
Since then, Rai has risen from the EuroPro Tour to the HotelPlanner Tour, becoming a Rolex Series champion on the DP World Tour and a dual member with the PGA TOUR, where he won his first title last year.
Now firmly established inside the top 50 on the Official World Golf Ranking, he will complete the set of Major Championship appearances and is proud to be able to share it with those who have helped him along the way.
“My dad will be there and a couple of family members and my coaches – there will be six or seven of us in total and it will be great to share that with them,” he said.
“I’ve been with my coaches for almost 20 years now. My physio is also there, I’ve been with him for 15 years.
“So it’s a real nice week for everyone to share together because they’ve been a part of this journey for such a long time now so to be at an event like the Masters for the first time with all of those guys that have played a big role in it will be really special and something I'm definitely looking forward to.
“It’s a dream come true to be there and I'm sure that’s the case for pretty much everyone that plays there for the first time so I'm definitely looking forward to it.
“I’m going to try to treat it as normal as possible in terms of routines and practice but at the same time acknowledge and hopefully take in how special a week it is and how much of a milestone that it is to compete in the Masters for the first time.
“Me and my dad went to Augusta towards the end of February. We spent two days there and took a local caddie that was great and shared a lot of insights with us.
“It was great to share that with my dad and just try and get a sense of what the course presents.”
Taking in the splendour of Augusta National with family and friends is all part of the process for a Masters rookie but Rai is fully aware that come Thursday, there is a golf tournament to be won.
Victory is not a thought that Rai has yet entertained but he knows that to perform at his best he will need to try and put sentiment aside.
For a man who seems to be one of the most level-headed in the game, that should not be an issue, but Rai believes there is a fine line to be walked between the inner-child and the global athlete.
“I find that it’s a really interesting situation when you view these things as a child and what you’ve aspired to and all of the meanings and memories that are associated with events like the Masters or The Open or The PLAYERS Championship,” he said.
“On one side it’s really important to be true to that and acknowledge how special these experiences are because you don’t know how many times you’re going to have them, nothing is for certain in life and nothing is for certain in golf and the future. That side I feel you have to respect and appreciate because it is amazing and it’s a dream come true.
“But then there’s the other side that doesn’t get overawed by all of those emotions, because I think if you embrace all of those things so much it’s easy to feel out of place when you get there because you’re viewing it from a completely different lens to where you’re at now and some of the things you’ve achieved to be in these positions and some of the skills you have now to warrant that invitation of being there.
“But I think that can also be quite cold at times and very far away from that child that really views everything as a dream and something that is amazing so I think being true to both of those is a very difficult balance to strike but something that is crucial in these experiences.
“It’s very easy to go too far down one line and take it all for granted but it’s also very easy to go too far down the other line where you feel out of place by being in these places so you have to try and embrace both sides of you, appreciate both sides of you and try and somehow blend them together in the best way that you can.”
Should Rai blend everything together next week and slip on the Green Jacket, he will become the first debutant to win the Masters since Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979.
That stat, plus other factors, have earned Augusta National a reputation as a golf course for specialists, with the likes of former champions Bernhard Langer and Fred Couples still able to produce moments of magic into their 50s and 60s.
You can play that place every day for years and you’d still probably learn something new every day. It’s an absolute masterpiece of a golf course
And while Rai does not think it is a layout that anyone could truly tame, he can see why rookies rarely fare well.
“It’s a unique place that a lot of golf fans and golfers will have watched so much on TV that we recognise pretty much every hole that is there,” he said.
“But to be there in person and see the green complexes and the layout, it definitely poses a lot of questions and you can see, even just spending one or two days there, that that course is infinitely complex.
“You can play that place every day for years and you’d still probably learn something new every day. It’s an absolute masterpiece of a golf course.
“Whether a course suits me or doesn’t, I try and appreciate a course for what it is. It's obviously extremely demanding: it will require strong elements of every single part of the game, it will test patience, it will test everything about you as a golfer and probably just about everything about you as a person to come through and to play well around that place.
“That’s something that I really respect about a golf course and truly appreciate the challenge that is going to be there. I try and look at it based on the golf course and what it presents rather than how much it will suit me or how much it won't.
“It’s definitely a place where experience and playing tournament rounds on that course, experiencing the pin positions and different wind conditions will definitely add layers to what you bring in future Masters so I’m not surprised that no one has won the tournament in their first time in almost 50 years now.
“Expectations of winning or allowing myself to think that far ahead is something that probably isn’t the right way for me to go about it and that’s the way I’m trying to look at the whole week.”
Rail will head to the Masters after a missed cut and a week off but in his three events previous to the Texas Children’s Houston Open, he had three top 20s, including one at the PLAYERS Championship.
Ranked 27th in the world as we spoke the week before the Masters, he has been inside the top 30 since his win at the Wyndham Championship in August, with last week just his third missed cut between now and then.
So while he may be considered an outsider for victory, a Rai win would fall well short of shock territory as one of the world’s established stars.
“The win last year was a amazing but I've always felt that consistency was just as important as victories and being in contention because I think that says a lot about your game in general and your game on a week-to-week basis,” he said.
“Everyone on the PGA TOUR is capable of winning any given week. The standard is so strong and the players are so good now but it’s the consistency of even the top players in the world that really separates them and that consistency lays the foundation for them to be in contention, learn more things about being in that position and to eventually win a number of times.
“That’s what guys like Scottie (Scheffler) have done, Rory (McIlroy) has done that for a long time, he’s exceptional, but I think it’s the consistency that really sets apart the best players in the world.
“I wouldn’t consider myself in that bracket at the moment but it’s nice to see high levels of consistency even on the back end of winning an event and things changing in that respect.
“In terms of being a top 50 or top 30 player in the world, it is a slightly different situation compared to the past. I think the first time we got into the top 50 was in July of last year so it still feels relatively new.
“Playing in all the biggest events and having a schedule that is very close to some of the very best players in the world is a great position to be in.
“I have to do a lot of things and stay on the path that I am in terms of the practice, the outlook, the mentality, the training and the focus that is given towards the game for me to keep progressing and to hopefully compete in some of these biggest events. If I do these things, I think I give myself a chance and that’s all I can really ask for.”
The PGA TOUR may be the current focus for Florida-based Rai but he admits that growing up it was not really on his radar, with the DP World Tour always the aspiration.
The 30-year-old plans to play more DP World Tour events across the summer into the Back 9 but his only action so far in 2025 has been at the Team Cup, a conscious decision in a Ryder Cup year.
Rai feels the experience of being “on the fringes” of selection two years ago and then playing in the Team Cup will benefit him in his quest to make Luke Donald’s team but as with everything, he is keeping his feet firmly on the ground.
“It’s a possibility but it’s a number of steps away before that happens,” he said.
“Luke has been great, he was fantastic with me two years ago. The fact he’s a Ryder Cup captain but to be able to speak to someone with Luke’s experience was just a real privilege.
“We’ve been in contact, we do message a little bit here and there and spending time with him at the Team Cup and having feedback on a couple of things has been great.
“He’s trying to invest in all of the players as players to make everyone better and then who come together in a team environment to then create as a strong a team as possible.
“I think he’s striking that balance amazingly well. He’s doing an amazing job, that showed in Italy, and regardless of what happens this year, he’ll have been an amazing Ryder Cup captain this time around too.”
A Ryder Cup appearance would be yet another step up the ladder for Rai, a man who has not forgotten what it is like to be at the bottom as he makes his ascent.
And at some point next week, if he stands over his own 15-foot right-to-lefter on the 18th, he may just remember that belief his father and his team have had in him the last 20 years, and just how far they have come together.
