Given a third straight chance to finally win a major, Jason Day promised a fight to the finish in the PGA Championship. Turns out the biggest fight was to hold back the tears.
Worried that this year might turn out to be a major failure, Day never gave Jordan Spieth or anyone else a chance on Sunday. He delivered a record-setting performance at Whistling Straits that brought him a major championship he started to wonder might never happen.
Day was in tears before he even tapped in for par and a 5-under 67 for a three-shot victory. He sobbed on the shoulder of Colin Swatton, his caddie and longtime coach who rescued Day as a 12-year-old struggling to overcome the death of his father.
And then came high praise from Spieth in the scoring trailer when golf’s new No. 1 player told him, “There’s nothing I could do.”
“I didn’t expect I was going to cry,” Day said. “A lot of emotion has come out because I’ve been so close so many times and fallen short. To be able to play the way I did today, especially with Jordan in my group, I could tell that he was the favorite. Just to be able to finish the way I did was amazing.”
He shared the 54-hole lead at the US Open and the British Open and had to watch someone else celebrate.
Spieth gave it his best shot, but even the Masters and US Open champion could tell what he was up against the way the 27-year-old Australian powered one drive after another and didn’t let anyone closer than the two-shot lead with which he started the final round. Spieth set a record of his own. By closing with a 68, he set a record by playing the four majors in 54-under par, breaking by one the mark that Woods set in 2000.