Walker endured a nervy finish after Day rolled in an eagle putt at the 18th to trim the deficit to one shot, after Walker had stretched his lead to three strokes with a birdie putt at the 17th. Everything went according to plan on the final day of the US PGA Championship at Baltusrol when, it seemed, the 37-years-old Texan could do little, no nothing, wrong. What’s more, after Henrik Stenson’s win at the British Open earlier in July, the 37-year-old Walker becomes the second major victor this year older than 35. The last roll of the 28-year-old Australian’s dice came on the final hole, a reachable par five.
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British Open champion Henrik Stenson, trying to join Ben Hogan as the only players to win back-to-back majors at age 40, faded with a double bogey on the 15th hole.
Jimmy Walker goes wire-to-wire at the PGA Championship thanks to a timely hole-out from the sand.
Nobody was watching Walker’s last putt more closely than Day. He appeared to have won after he sunk a 10-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole, which increased his lead to three shots.
Day eagling the 18th to force Walker to make a par, and the latter then inexplicably going for the par-five green in two before having to hack it out of thick rough and holing a nervy three-footer, was a fitting finale to a major campaign full of incident; from Spieth’s meltdown at Augusta, to Johnson’s rules-rumpus breakthrough at Oakmont; to Stenson’s classic Open duel with Phil Mickelson.
“I hope so. I think it’s such the right call”, he said.
– Sunday, Sept. 11, 2016: Love will select three of his four Captain’s Picks at the conclusion of the BMW Championship, scheduled to end on this day.
“I just want to win, that’s all”, the world number one said. “I think everyone expects if you’re in the lead or if you’re a favourite to win, they expect you to win, and if you don’t, then you’re in a slump”, said Day.
“It was a long day”.
“I tried to give it a good run”. “I know exactly how Jimmy feels, because I did exactly that a year ago”. But I can’t be disappointed. “Jimmy played great all week”.
South Africa’s Branden Grace shot 67 to finish at -9 alongside Brooks Koepka (70) of the U.S. and Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama (70), whose poor putting stroke kept him from challenging Walker. He shot 71 and shared seventh with Germany’s Martin Kaymer and American Robert Streb. I felt like something clicked last week and I brought it in this week. However, the Swede, like many, struggled with the pace of rain-soaked slow greens.
“I literally hit it in the worst place you could hit it”, Walker said. “So I made a conscious effort to try to get better”.
“There was nothing easy about the day – really about the week, for that matter”, Walker said after his round.
Walker admitted to feeling nerves on the back nine. He missed the cut in the US and British Opens this year after a tie for 29th at the Masters.
That birdie putt looked like missing but the golf gods were on Walker’s side today and he finished with a simple three-foot putt on 18 to finish with a bogey-free round of 67.
“It shows that everybody is really good and everybody’s got a chance to win”, Walker said.
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That at least would allow the chance to finish Sunday evening, though it also meant the champion could finish hours before the last group finished.
