“It was a long day”.
Advertisement
Walker then rolled in a left-to-right curling, 30-foot uphill putt for birdie at the 11th to extend his lead to two over Australia’s Day.
“Jason, when he holes out for eagle on the last hole, doesn’t give me a whole lot of time to soak it in”, Walker said. “It’s a very special moment to be able to celebrate on the 18th green”.
“Day really put it on me to make par”, Walker said of the final hole.
The 37-year-old from Oklahoma took the Wanamaker Trophy and the top prize of $1.8 million (1.6 million euros) from a $10 million purse.
The PGA marked Walker’s fifth official Tour win, and he becomes the fifth straight first-time major victor dating back to Day’s victory at the 2015 PGA at Whistling Straits.
Daniel Summerhays finished in third position after accelerating with six birdies in the final ten holes of his fourth round to enter the clubhouse at ten-under par. Although Jordan Spieth, Adam Scott and Phil Mickelson all made it to the weekend, they didn’t even place in the top ten. After nearly missing the cut earlier in the competition, Grace claimed to play “some of the best golf he has played” although his earlier form eventually prevented him from threatening lifting the trophy.
“The popularity of major champions is always easy to determine”. Sometimes you can just tell from a person’s body language what they’re going to do next, and a pumped-up Day’s approach at the 18th was out of this world.
Groups kept their third-round pairings for the last round in another time-saving bid.
But 37 of 86 golfers who made the cut did complete the third round before storms stopped play for the day, with resumption set for 7 a.m. (1100 GMT) Sunday over the water-logged par-70 layout.
Day was pleased with his performance at the tournament, in particular on a marathon final day, when he played 36 holes. He missed to the right and had to chip out of the Baltusrol rough, leaving him two putts to seal the victory.
But Day sank a 14-foot eagle putt at the 18th to reach the clubhouse at 13 under with Walker on the 18th fairway.
“I wouldn’t have called this, but it’s huge”, Walker said.
“I made the birdie (on 17) but sometimes things just don’t come easy and golf is not an easy game, and Jason is a true champion”, Walker said.
Day had been bidding to become the first player to successfully defend a major championship title since Irishman Padraig Harrington at the 2008 British Open and join Peter Thomson, David Graham and Greg Norman as just the fourth Australian win multiple majors.
“The goal was to play here”, he said.
“On days like this, you’ve just got to keep pushing yourself harder than anyone else, mentally more so than physically”, Day said.”It’s tough, it’s grueling, and it’s more mentally painful to go through days like this, just because you get to a certain point and that barrier, you’ll be sitting there and going, ‘I just don’t know if I can push on anymore'”. “I can’t be disappointed”. It was fun. Jimmy (Walker) played great.
Stenson (71), Germany’s Martin Kaymer (66) and Robert Streb (69) tied for seventh at 8 under.
Advertisement
And for the first time since 2011, all four of the year’s Majors had been claimed by first-time winners. “I didn’t have my best game today and I didn’t make a putt all day”. He wasn’t sure he was as good as I thought he could be.
