KING FOR A DAY!
Jason finishes 20-under to take PGA crown: Gola,
SHEBOYGAN, Wis. – Jason Day started crying even before he tapped in the final putt. The 27-year-old Aussie used a towel to finally wipe away years of frustration at the PGA Championship Sunday, a hard-luck loser no more.
The also-ran in so many majors ran over the entire field at Whistling Straits, holding the incredible Jordan Spieth at arm’s length the entire final round for a three-shot victory and a record score.
“When I saw the (first) putt get up to half a foot, I couldn’t stop crying,” he said. “It’s just a lot of hard work that I’ve been putting into this game to have a shot at glory, to have a shot at greatness.
“I guess you can take me off the best players without a major now,” he said. “The biggest thing that prepares you for something like this is just the sheer experience of failure. If I didn’t have that failure, I wouldn’t be standing here with the trophy.” Day set a major championship record by finishing at 20-under par for the week. He had shared the 54-hole lead at both the U.S. Open, where he battled through vertigo, and the British Open, where he was short on a birdie putt on 18 that would have put him into the playoff.
“Just pure frustration,” he said. “I really thought my first major championship was going to be at the Open Championship this year. I really did think that. But you flip it now and I’m at the PGA Championship with the amount of emotion that’s come out of me.” This time he left no room for error. Spieth, denied the chance to become the third player to win three majors in one season, said it was the “easiest loss” he’s ever had.
“It was fantastic,” Spieth said. “We
play a lot of golf and we’ve played in a lot of major championship rounds together and that was the best I’ve seen him play.”
Spieth also accomplished one of his lifelong goals. By finishing second, he passed Rory McIlroy as the No. 1 player in the world.
“That will never be taken away from me now,” he said. “I’ll always be a No. 1 player in the world.”
But if this keeps up, Day might join him down the road. He said afterward that it’s still his own lifelong goal. And his play in majors has been phenomenal. The win means that in 22 major starts, he’s had five top fives and 10 top 10s. But not winning had haunted him.
“We wanted this one, we wanted this one,” said Day’s longtime coach and caddie, Colin Swatton.
He called his man “100 percent resilient ... tenacity, the willingness to fight, dig deeper than anybody. He’s gritty. He held off Jordan Spieth and a bunch of good guys today.”
Day said he felt Spieth was “the heavy favorite” and because of that said it was the toughest round of golf he’s ever had to play.
But in the scorer’s tent, Spieth told Day there was nothing he could do to stop him.
“It’s a good feeling when someone like Jordan, who is playing phenomenal golf right now, says that,” Day said. “It means that he left everything out there on the golf course and my play this week was just so much better, better than everyone else. And it feels good.”
Spieth never got closer than the twoshot deficit he started with. Spieth, who had trouble hitting fairways, bogeyed the third hole while Day came out in attack mode with birdies on two, five, six and seven to open a four-shot lead.
Day went out in 33, came home in 34 and was in complete control of his game.
“He’s impressive to watch strike the ball but it was nothing like today,” Spieth said. “He took it back and he wailed on it and it was a stripe show. It was really a clinic to watch.” Day couldn’t hide his emotions. “I wouldn’t have been here if my father didn’t pass away when I was 12,” he said. “That door closed for me but another opened for me. That was for my mom to sacrifice and my sisters to sacrifice.”
Day’s 3-year-old son, Dash, dashed out to greet him, trailed by his mom, Ellie.
As Day was walking off the 18th green holding Dash, the youngster asked simply, “Can we go home?”
The answer would be yes — as a major winner. Finally and deservedly so.