But he would not be denied Sunday, firing a 5-under 67 at Whistling Straits to cruise to a three-stroke victory over Justin Spieth, a two-time major champion himself this year, to win the Wanamaker Trophy and get the major monkey off his back. “That’s the philosophy I’ve always taken with this game”.
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“I didn’t expect I was going to cry”, said the TaylorMade player.
He couldn’t hold back the tears on the 18th green Sunday, not just because of all the near-misses in majors, but rather because of the road he had to travel just to get to any of them.
He sat with his feet up in front of the television while they, by all accounts, had a ball over in Scotland.
PGA hero Jason Day is 80/1 for four top fives at the majors, 18/1 top 10s and 11/2 top 20s while Spieth is 7/1 to repeat his haul of two majors in 2015.
He took the loss in stride, even though his score of 17-under par would have won most majors ever contested, telling Day in the scorer’s tent, “There was nothing I could do”.
There is no doubt he could have done without that unscheduled lay-off, especially when the level of expectation was so high among the tens of thousands who monitor his every move.
Day began the final round with a two-shot lead over playing partner Spieth, although the strongest initial challenge came from Grace, who picked up a shot on the third and then rolled in a hat-trick of birdies from the fifth.
Just ask those to pay top dollar of have his name on their company logos or the men who sit in the TV commentary boxes on both sides of the Atlantic. It provided him the flawless opportunity to walk around the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits in complete incognito.
Spieth; More major glory coming in 2016?
The one-two rivalry in the world rankings with Rory McIlroy has been a running sideshow – “Rory is ranked number one, so he is number one“, insisted Spieth, adding: “I think he, for the first two days back in competition after that long layoff, he seemed to swing very freely, no restrictions”.
As the final pair started with pars on the opening hole, McIlroy had birdied the sixth and seventh to improve to eight under par and a share of 12th place, the 26-year-old performing superbly on his return from an ankle ligament injury which meant he could not defend his Open and Bridgestone Invitational titles. Only Tiger Woods was able to claim the No. 1 ranking at a younger age than Spieth.
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Jason Day had been here before.
