World number one Jason Day overcame a sluggish start on Sunday to win the US PGA Players Championship, firing a final-round one-under-par 71 to complete a wire-to-wire victory.
Advertisement
“This is great to be The Players champion, but now once tonight is done and tomorrow starts, it’s another week that I have to get ready and prepare for the next tournament that’s coming up, because it’s never enough”, he said after finishing on 15-under par, four shots clear of American Kevin Chappell.
Day was looking to join Tiger Woods (twice), Tom Watson and Johnny Miller in recording multiple wire-to-wire wins in a season following his victory in the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill. It’s only half the year, so I’ve got plenty of opportunities to try and win some more.
Jason Day wanted to win The Players Championship so badly that he wasn’t going to let anything stop him. The LPGA had the weekend off while Wang Jeunghun continued to turn heads with a record-setting performance at the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open. He wants to keep moving forward, he wants to keep that number one spot and I think this will really show him: “‘hey, just keep clocking these hours and good things happen'”. “They’re all good out here, and when you get some good numbers and make some good putts, the scores are there, and that’s kind of what happened today”. Rickie Fowler’s 2015 Players win put him in the periphery of the discussion about who constituted the best golfers on Tour.
Jason Day of Australia, tips his hat as he walks off the 18th green with his family after winning The Players Championship golf tournament Sunday, May 15, 2016, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. He muffed three straight chips and had to make a 6-foot putt just to escape with bogey, dropping his lead to two shots. The 29-year-old Chappell still wins over $1 million.
“I look at Tiger and he’s (got) 79 and I’m just like, ‘OK, I want to be able to be looked back on and know that I was one of the greats in the game”.
It is perhaps inevitable that Day’s current run of form is being described as “Tiger-esque”. He answered with a wedge to 2 feet for birdie, but then had more trouble off the green at the par-3 eighth. Asked the most significant shot he hit Sunday, he didn’t hesitate to mention that putt.
Verstappen was in second place behind Ricciardo after the Mercedes crash, but moved to the front after a round of pit stops with less than 25 laps to go and stayed there until the end despite the pressure from Raikkonen, who finished less than a second behind.
Second-round leader Andrew Dodt dropped seven shots on the back nine in a 77 that left the Australian tied for third with Belgium’s Nicolas Colsaerts (73) at 3 under.
Advertisement
“I think a lot of it had to do with belief”. Day also said he felt slighted ahead of the tournament when Golf Channel analysts downplayed his chances. “So that’s what I need to try and cut out going forward”.
