SPIETH TO JASON: MAKE MY DAY
Jordan mounts charge, trails Jason by 2
SHEBOYGAN, Wis. — The PGA Championship was beginning to look a lot like Jason Day’s long-awaited coming-out party in the majors. And then Jordan Spieth crashed it. Anyone with any designs on winning one of these things had better get used to it. Odds are they are going to have to deal with Spieth sooner or later.
Saturday’s third round was sooner. Sunday’s fourth round will be later.
Day might have known winning his first major wasn’t going to be easy. And now, his first career 54-hole lead in a major turns out to be two shots over the relentless Masters and U.S. Open champ, who blitzed the back nine in 30 to shoot 65.
Justin Rose, the 2013 U.S. Open champ, is three shots back, tied with U.S. Open contender Branden Grace.
“You can never count Jordan out right now with how he’s playing, especially this year. He’s full of confidence right now,” Day said. “So with my confidence level and his stellar play right now . . . I feel like it’s going to be an exciting finish. I’m hoping they set the course up where you can attack it. Tomorrow is just going to be fun.”
All Spieth needed at Whistling Straits Saturday was Day’s only hiccup, a double bogey from out of the bunker on the 15th hole. Before that, Day, cruising at 16-under par, was five shots ahead of Spieth, even as the Texan inched up the leaderboard. As the metronomic Spieth kept birdieing holes — six of eight to finish the round — Day’s final lead dwindled.
“I got to the board on 18. As I read my hole from behind the hole, I didn’t really plan on looking at it, but it was right in the through and I saw Jason was at 16-under,” Spieth said. “And I said you’ve got to be kidding me. When is he going to slow down? I did all I could do to finish the round off.”
Day, who had eight birdies and an eagle on the day, took two shots to get out of the bunker on the 15th then got a bad lie after a great shot into 16.
“It was my own fault I hit it in that bunker, I understand that,” he said. “Sixteen, I was very frustrated. I hit a great drive down the middle, I hit 3-wood from 265 into the wins, expecting it to be close to the hole. It goes over and it looks like someone stood on the bloody ball.”
But Day saved par there and made a great putt for birdie on 17, followed by a release of emotion.
“I was getting back at those last two holes,” he explained.
Spieth, meanwhile, finally got hot with the putter. “I was at a point today where I was not sure of where the ball was going to start off my putter face, and that’s a really ugly feeling.
And you just need to see one go before it just clicks right back in,” he said.
Spieth, who hasn’t made a bogey in his last 33 holes, has said he’s out for revenge after losing control of the British Open late in the fourth round with his Grand Slam hopes slipping away.
“I certainly have a little chip on my shoulder this week that I want to get back from those last couple of holes at St. Andrews, but that won’t be in my head tomorrow. Just to try to get my name on the Wanamaker Trophy, that’s about it, that’s the only history I’ll be thinking of when we step on the first tee is you can hoist that trophy tomorrow and make it happen.”
For Day, it would be a first. He knows what he’s up against as Spieth will be playing in the final group of his fourth straight major. “It can be hard. But long story short, you’ve just got to suck it up,” he said.
Day noted that he saw Matt Jones stick one on the first hole Saturday and didn’t panic.
“That’s the stuff I need to do tomorrow, even though Jordan might be holing putts on me,” Day said. “If he goes out and wins tomorrow from putting well, then he deserves it.
“But I’m going to give him a fight.”