Rai entered the week with a 0.2 percent chance to win the PGA Championship, per Data Golf. He ranked 44th in the Official World Golf Ranking and 65th in DG’s ratings, both the lowest of any major winner since Phil Mickelson’s 2021 PGA Championship win. Before that, you’d have to go back to Jimmy Walker in 2016, also at the PGA Championship.

Even on Sunday, Rai didn’t seem like the favorite to win. After a bogey on 8 put him three strokes back of the lead, he had just a 1.8 percent chance to win.

And then he started going nuts with his putts. Everybody agreed Aronimink had incredibly tough greens, but Rai drained that 68-footer for birdie and had a 40-footer for a Philadelphia eagle on 9. He had seven straight one-putts and only needed 26 putts on the day, the fewest of any golfer on the course.

Which is incredible, because Rai is one of the worst putters on the Tour. He ranks 150th this year in one-putt percentage and 154th in putts per round.

That’s right, he’s 151st in driving distance and 150th in putting. And he just won a major.

That’s like being bad at “shooting the basketball” and “dribbling the basketball” and going off in Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

Data Golf noted in its liveblog that Rai is particularly bad at long putts, ranking in the 14th percentile … and then he went out and drilled 40-footers like Steph.

Rai won just his second PGA Tour event. (Some players won a major as their first PGA Tour win … for some, their only PGA Tour win.) His first win was the 2024 Wyndham Championship, an August event that most of the best players skipped. His best finish at a major was a tie for 19th.

If Rai didn’t win, it was going to be someone random. The leaderboard was one of the most crowded in major tournament history, with 22 golfers entering Sunday within four strokes of the lead.

But people seem to be pretty thrilled it’s Rai. This ESPN story features all his richer, more famous counterparts going all-out in praise of Rai the Guy, a “good dude” who is “nicer and kinder” than just about everybody else on the Tour. I even found Reddit threads where everybody is talking about how nice Rai seemed in various encounters.

And he’s got some quirks. There’s the glove thing (and they’re not even fancy leather gloves, they’re weatherproof rain gloves.) He also uses covers on his irons, which he says is a reminder of how his family took extra-special care of their clubs because they couldn’t afford new ones. He comes from a working-class family of Indian descent. His mother immigrated to England from Kenya.

And in a sport where most of the top players use cutting-edge tech and are paid handsomely to tell normies that the newest, most expensive driver will fix their game, Rai doesn’t have a gear deal and uses a seven-year-old driver. The model he uses is reportedly a “high-forgiveness” driver, as opposed to a performance driver built to generate speed and distance.

I suspect it’s bad for business when a player like Rai comes out of nowhere and brings home a big trophy. We tell ourselves we love underdogs, but the data shows that more people will likely tune in if A Guy We Know is in contention. (I enjoyed the Phantom Island episode about how large parts of the golf economy still rely on the chance that a 50-year-old, mega-injured, post-DUI Tiger Woods can still contend for a major some day.)

But I promise you: I will give as much — if not more — coverage to golf when Rai-level randos break through. It’s my favorite thing about golf, a famously exclusive sport that happens to have a (mostly) meritocratic format. To win in most sports, the underdog has to literally score against their bigger, stronger, more famous opponent — and that’s hard! In golf, the underdog just has to hit 271 shots over four days while their opponents hit 274. And everybody is left standing around confused. Who is that guy? Why isn’t he sponsored by some financial company or consulting firm?

Hearts led the league for 226 days, dating back to September 27th. (Back then, Penn State and LSU were ranked #2 and #3 in the college football AP poll; both teams missed the 12-team playoff and fired their coaches.) That stretch encompassed 31 matches, and then about 98 percent of the 32nd match.

I cannot stress enough that this was probably the best shot anybody will ever have to break up the Scottish duopoly. Celtic and Rangers are each about 10 times wealthier than any other club in Scotland. Both happened to have unusually bad seasons this year. Before this year, you’d have to go back to 2019 to find the last time a non-Old Firm team came within 20 points of the title … and that was Kilmarnock, which finished 19 points behind Celtic.

Celtic won their last seven matches, including three game-winning goals scored in the 88th minute or later. They beat Hearts in the 88th minute, scored in the 90th minute against Dundee United, and went ahead on a controversial 99th-minute penalty against Motherwell. (Somebody leaked the ref’s personal info online and got arrested.) Any of those matches ends in a draw instead of a Celtic win, and Hearts wins the league.

Even as a college football fan … damn, that was a pretty wild field storming! According to The Athletic, 14 people were arrested and two police officers were “seriously injured.”

Celtic now has 56 Scottish league championships, inching past Rangers, which has 55. The world leader in domestic league titles is Linfield, a Belfast club that has won the Northern Ireland league 57 times … which is, of course, incredibly relevant to the Celtic-Rangers rivalry, which has long been defined by Catholic/Protestant sectarian tensions. Linfield is a deeply Protestant club with a long, close relationship with Rangers. Linfield fans threw bottles at Celtic players when the two teams played each other in the Champions League in 2017.

Swerving back to sports, I think this angle of Daizen Maeda’s bicycle kick goal in Celtic’s win over Rangers is one of the best bits of sports cinema I’ve ever seen. This video is 7 minutes long, but I’ve got it cued up to the good part:

Texas Tech pulled off one of the most miraculous comebacks you’ll ever see in any sport. Trailing 8-0 and down to their final out against Ole Miss, the Red Raiders scored eight straight runs to tie the game and force extra innings, where they won 10-9:

Teams were 0-640 in NCAA Tournament history when trailing by eight runs at any point in the game. Texas Tech was down eight runs WITH ONE OUT REMAINING.

I am pinning this one on Ole Miss’ manager, who didn’t think to make a pitching change even after the starting pitcher, with 150 pitches in her arm, gave up four straight runs and walked the bases loaded to bring the tying run to the plate.

Another stunning comeback came in UCLA vs. Cal Baptist … which was a lot closer than the same matchup in the NCAA basketball tournament. Calbap scored 10 runs in the fifth inning and led 11-9 heading into the seventh, but UCLA won in walk off.

Update on the historic NCAA home run chase: UCLA’s Megan Grant has become the first NCAA softball player to hit 40 dingers; Oklahoma’s Kendall Wells is now at 37 to tie the old NCAA record; UCLA’s Jordan Woolery looks destined for third place with 34, which would still be one of the best power-hitting seasons in NCAA softball history.

I really loved this moment spotted by novelist/poster Victoria Zeller, when a UNC Greensboro player celebrated a sacrifice bunt in the top of the first inning like it was a walk-off homer. That bunt helped score a run, which turned out to be the only run in UNCG’s 1-0 upset over Clemson. Small Ball Moment of the Decade.

The star of the tournament so far is Mississippi State’s Alyssa Faircloth, who threw a no-hitter against Oregon in Eugene, then came back and struck out 14 batters in the regional final against Saint Mary’s.

Faircloth is pictured above with a teammate dangling broccoli behind her, inspired by an Oregon fan who celebrated with broccoli all weekend. (He called the broccoli “natural pom-poms.”) Some Mississippi State dads were so inspired they went to a local grocery store and bought 30 pounds of broccoli for team celebrations in the dugout. The Bulldogs will need all the help they can get against Oklahoma next weekend. Bring the bok choy and cauliflower, too!

All in all, pretty chalky weekend: 13 of 16 regional hosts advanced, and the three teams that pulled off upsets were power conference teams (Mississippi State, Arizona State, and UCF). But you’ve gotta admit, it took some wild stuff to get there.

Thunder-Spurs – The most anticipated conference finals matchup since Warriors-Rockets back in 2018? Oklahoma City looked unstoppable against 28 other NBA teams this year, but San Antonio had its number, going 4-1 against the Thunder in the regular season. The Spurs have also looked insurmountable this postseason in games where Victor Wembanyama isn’t hurt or practicing Muay Thai, so this should be a juicy series. Secondary guard play could be the under-the-radar deciding factor: Dylan Harper and Stephon Castle for the Spurs versus Cason Wallace and Ajay Mitchell for the Thunder. (Game 1: Monday, 8:30 p.m. ET; Game 2: Wednesday, 8:30 p.m. ET)

Knicks-Cavaliers – New York has been resting for over a week, while Cleveland just polished off a seven-game series against Detroit. There are a couple important matchups in this series, the first being between the bigs. Mitch Robinson and Karl-Anthony Towns humbled an injured Joel Embiid and lackluster Philly lineup, but they’ll have their hands full with Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen, who were fierce to close out Detroit. However, the biggest catalyst in this series, in my opinion, will be James Harden. Will he be merely good or a legitimate alpha? We’ve seen both this postseason, but the Cavs will need him to return to MVP form to take down this Knicks squad. (Game 1: Tuesday, 8 p.m. ET)

Sabres-Canadiens (Series tied 3-3) – Game 7! Montreal scored goals on its first three shots in Game 6 to move into position to clinch the series … then proceeded to give up seven goals in a row (a whole touchdown)! The series heads back to Buffalo for tonight’s winner-take-all matchup … you know who we’re rooting for. (Game 7: Monday, 7:30 p.m. ET)

Avalanche-Golden Knights – Meanwhile, we’re already at the Western Conference Finals on the other side of the bracket. Colorado and Vegas advanced in five and six games, respectively. Both have received stellar goalie play. Vegas hasn’t played anyone close to Colorado’s caliber so far, but it has been here before. So have the Avalanche though. (Game 1: Wednesday, 8 p.m. ET)