Walker’s club didn’t waste any time; less than an hour after he won the 2016 PGA Championship at Baltusrol by one stroke over Jason Day, the flagstone already reflected Walker’s first major win.
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Day made an eagle on the final hole from 13 feet to force Walker to make his final putt for the win.
“Sometimes a par is tough”, Walker said.
“It was a battle all day”.
An eagle putt from Day on the 18th green ensured a nervy finish, but Walker’s consistency was too strong.
“Golf is not an easy game and Jason is a true champion and I wouldn’t expect anything less than an eagle at the last – it’s unreal”.
The ball came to rest on the 18th green inside of 15 feet. It was the first time preferred lies were greenlighted in a major championship.
Walker had a hard time treading water early in the third round, dropping two strokes on the front side.
With rain wiping out his and Walker’s third rounds on Saturday, Day shot a three-under 67 on Sunday morning to begin the final round one stroke off the lead. Players could clean mud off their balls in low-mown areas and replace them.
He is the seventh player to go wire-to-wire at the PGA Championship, joining Bobby Nichols (1964), Raymond Floyd (1969 and 1982), Hal Sutton (1983), Nick Price (1994), Tiger Woods (2000) and Phil Mickelson, who also achieved the feat at Baltusrol in 2005.
South Africa’s Branden Grace was left to rue a couple of costly mistakes after setting the clubhouse target in the weather-affected US PGA Championship.
“It was the right thing to do to showcase the best players in the world”.
Walker led by one stroke after the morning third round and opened the afternoon final round with nine pars to make the turn at 11 under, one ahead of Day and British Open victor Henrik Stenson of Sweden.
Then, he struck, first on 10 when he splashed out of a greenside bunker for a birdie three.
Jutanugarn made a 25-foot birdie putt on the par-3 17th to take a two-shot advantage to the final hole.
Walker answered, like he had done all day, with a birdie for a three-shot lead. When he saw he was three shots behind Jimmy Walker, Day flipped his putter in the air and didn’t catch it as it dropped to the ground. Walker twice had to back off his 8-foot birdie putt on the 17th when he heard the crowd erupt after Day’s shot into the 18th.
Brooks Koepka, playing for the first time since he pulled out of the Bridgestone Invitational one month ago because of an ankle injury, didn’t make a birdie until the 15th hole and closed with a 70 to tie for fourth. Nothing in golf comes easy.
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Walker sent his second shot into the right rough but lofted his third onto the green 23 feet from the cup. Jutanugarn rebounded in a breakthrough May, running off the three straight victories to become the LPGA Tour’s first Thai champion.
