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Aaron Wise explains the awkward embrace with his girlfriend that went viral

May 23, 2018

PGA Tour pros aren't great at high-fives, but embraces with their significant others on the 18th green? That's one area of celebrating where, yes, these guys are good. When 21-year-old rookie Aaron Wise won the AT&T Byron Nelson on Sunday, however, he didn't have the smoothest encounter with his girlfriend. Fortunately, no one seemed to notice. . . kidding!

The slightly awkward clip went viral and was dissected nearly as much as Wise's first PGA Tour win. Various news outlets wrote posts with zinger headlines like "Pro golfer gets rejected going in for celebratory kiss" and "Golfer gets friendzoned after winning." Poor guy … or was he? We caught up with Aaron by phone to get the backstory.

"So my girlfriend actually flew in Sunday morning and it was a total surprise she was coming," Wise told GolfDigest.com. "She waited, she kinda hid around the golf course so I wouldn't see her and she just wanted to surprise me on the 18th green. We were just all so shocked, she was excited, I was excited, and in the moment she was kind of telling me what she had to do so I couldn't see it and for the moment to be the way she wanted, and I kinda went in for a little kiss there and she didn't even recognize it because she was too excited in the moment. It's definitely been made a lot of. It's funny, we're rolling with it."

See? It's really not a big deal, guys. Jeez. And we're glad to hear that Aaron and his girlfriend are getting a kick out of all the coverage.

"It's definitely kind of weird to see myself in the tabloids like that, but it's all in good fun," Wise went on to say. "And you know, a first win is not supposed to go perfectly, so if that's the only thing I messed up, I'll take it."

Well said, Aaron. And we're fairly certain you'll get another crack at this soon.