The golfing world record that Abu Dhabi Championship winner Aaron Rai has held for 15 years now

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Aaron Rai defeated Tommy Fleetwood in a sudden death playoff at the Abu Dhabi Championship on Sunday.

Rai bounced back incredibly well from a three-putt bogey on his 14th hole by making birdies on the 16th and 17th.

The 30-year-old from Wolverhampton, England, finished level with Fleetwood on 25-under par, before beating his fellow countryman on the first playoff hole.

Ahead of the playoff, Rai was made to wait on the 18th tee by Fleetwood, but that didn’t put him off one little bit.

Fleetwood said Rai was an unbelievable golfer on Saturday, and his rival holing his putt for birdie in the sudden death playoff would have cemented his opinion.

Nobody should be surprised that Rai holed his 10-foot putt for the win at Yas Links.

The golfing world record Abu Dhabi Championship winner Aaron Rai holds

The Abu Dhabi Championship is a huge event on the DP World Tour, with Rai earning just over $1.5 million for his victory.

Rai’s strengths are his accuracy off the tee and his incredibly solid ball-striking with his irons.

He is somewhat of a streaky putter, but when he’s on form he looks very solid on the greens from inside 10 feet.

Rai proved just how deadly he can be with his putter way back in 2010, when he was just 15, by holing 207 consecutive putts from 10 feet.

The Englishman spoke about his accomplishment after achieving the feat that put him in the record book.

Via quotes from BBC Sport, he said: “It was about an hour-and-a-half and afterwards I had a sore back.”

Incredibly, Rai still holds that record to this very day, and it’s fair to say that it will be extremely hard for anyone to beat it.

Aaron Rai’s hugely surprising PGA Tour putting stats in 2025

Weirdly, Rai has struggled on the greens this year over on the PGA Tour.

Here are his putting stats in five separate categories in 2025:

Those numbers make for shocking reading quite frankly, given the world record that he holds!

Interestingly, Rai gained 0.49 strokes per round on the greens at the Abu Dhabi Championship this week, and he led the field in strokes gained approach.

With the Englishman’s elite driving accuracy, he is clearly very tough to beat when he putts well.