Day is the first Australian to win a major since Adam Scott picked up the 2013 Masters and only the fifth to win the PGA Championship. PHOTO: AFP
Day held off Jordan Spieth to clinch the PGA Championship on Sunday with a five-under 67 to bring his total for the tournament to 268 — the lowest winning score in relation to par ever in a major championship.
“It’s a great day — excuse the pun — for Jason, for Australian golf and for Australian golfers,” declared PGA of Australia chief executive Brian Thorburn. “He’s been chasing this for a long, long time and I think to have gone so close on so many occasions, nailing one was his priority and he’s done that.”
Sunday’s victory was Day’s eighth top-10 finish of the season and the fourth in his last five starts.
The success of was lauded by Australian sporting greats.
“Congratulations to my fellow #Queenslander and #Australian,” tweeted golfing legend Greg Norman, himself a major winner.
Veteran tennis star Lleyton Hewitt tweeted that Day was a “great bloke and a great Australian!” while former Formula 1 driver Mark Webber said, “Cracking win... Grafter and humble. Congratulations. #classact”.
Day will rise from fifth to a career-high number three in the world, but most importantly for the Australian, he has shed the tag of one of the best players never to win a major.
Number one spot consoles runner-up Spieth
Spieth failed to add a third major title to his 2015 resume, but the 22-year-old claimed another coveted honour: the world number one ranking.
Spieth, the Masters and US Open winner, was touted as the player headed for history at the 97th PGA Championship, where he had a chance to join legendary Ben Hogan and superstar Tiger Woods as the only men to win three majors in a year.
But Day thwarted that dream with a three-stroke win over Spieth, who nevertheless dislodged Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy from the number one spot he had held for 55 consecutive weeks.
“That will never be taken away from me now. I’ll always be a number one player in the world,” said Spieth, the second-youngest to ascend the summit behind Woods, who was 21 when he first reached number one in 1997.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 18th, 2015.
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