Aussies Scott, Day play for Lyle as they chase PGA win
AUSTRALIAN contenders Adam Scott and Jason Day are battling in part to win the 100th PGA Championship in tribute to fellow Aussie golfer Jarrod Lyle, who passed away last week of cancer.
And they’re doing a pretty good job.
Scott, the 2013 Masters champion, fired Saturday’s low round, a five-under-par 65, to stand second on 10-under 200, two strokes behind US leader Brooks Koepka after 54 holes at Bellerive Country Club.
World number 10 Day, the 2015 PGA Championship winner, shares sixth in a pack on 202 with four other major champions, including Tiger Woods.
“There are going to be about 10 of us looking for that round of the year,” Scott said. “Someone will go out and do it and I’m glad I’m in that position that it could be me.”
But the golfer most on their minds this week is their friend Lyle, who battled blood cancer for years, twice thinking he had beaten it only for it to return, leaving behind a wife and two children.
“It would be more than twice the thrill for me,” Scott said of what a win would mean Sunday. “But I think no matter who wins tomorrow, if that person has met Jarrod Lyle, they will have felt something with him passing.”
The Aussies feel it especially hard. Day was in tears talking about Lyle on Thursday after his opening round.
“It’s hard because you sit there and you know him and he’s a buddy of yours, and he’s not there anymore,” Day said.
“He’s never going to come back. That’s the hardest thing to sort of come by.
“I lived across the street from him when we first started out in Orlando. He’s a good buddy of mine. It’s obviously heartbreaking.”
Being away from others touched by the loss in Australia makes it tougher.
“It has been such a difficult thing for us to get our heads around because we’ve been removed from Jarrod and his family back in Australia and everything happening so suddenly,” Scott said.
“I don’t even really know if we have all really had time to reflect on it and let it sink in. But I think that a part of everyone is playing for Jarrod out here this week.”