KOHLER - Australia’s Jason Day won the PGA Championship in historic style on Sunday, capturing his first grand slam title with a 20-under par total unprecedented in major championship history.
Day carded a five-under par 67 in the final round at Whistling Straits for a 20-under total of 268 — breaking Tiger Woods’s major-record low winning total of 19-under set at the British Open in 2000. Day, who has endured a string of near-misses on golf’s biggest stages, was never going to let this one slip away. “I wasn’t going to stop fighting until it was over,” said the 27-year-old, who takes home a $1.8 million prize almost as hefty as the Wanamaker Trophy itself.
From his birdie from a bunker at the second hole, Day was off and running, leaving Masters and US Open champion Jordan Spieth and the rest of the field in the shade. Spieth carded a four-under par 68 for 17-under 271, holding off England’s Justin Rose and South African Branden Grace to finish second and seize the world number one ranking from Rory McIlroy.
Day reached 20-under for good with a two-putt birdie from the fringe at the par-five 16th. At 18, Day rolled his first putt from 45 feet to within a foot, and was already weeping as he tapped in for par and the win. “I didn’t expect I was going to cry,” Day said. “A lot of emotion has come out because I’ve been so close so many times and fallen short. “Just to be able to finish the way I did was amazing.”
Day didn’t realize his 20-under total was a record low for a major winner. “The amount of history that’s been through our game, in our sport, to be able to hold that record currently is really amazing,” he said. “I just can’t think of it. It really is just something that I haven’t been able to sit down and just kind of absorb and really kind of cherish.”
Day, who will rise from fifth to third in the world rankings, took a two-stroke lead into the final round — his biggest 54-hole lead at a major after holding at least a share of the top spot through three rounds in both the US and British Opens this year. He finished with seven birdies on the day and two bogeys, twice reaching 20-under as his pursuers scrambled in his wake.
Grace applied the most pressure, closing in with three straight birdies from the fifth through seventh. But Day pulled away with his own birdie burst starting at the fifth, capped by a 50-footer at the par-three seventh. His lead from there never less than two strokes and at times as high as four.
Grace finished third after a 69 for 273 and while he regretted a few “silly mistakes” of his own he could only admire Day’s “marvelous golf.” “I don’t think anybody would have caught him this week,” said the South African, who was even with Rose until the Englishman bogeyed 18 to fall to fourth with a 70 for 274.
Rose had briefly moved within two strokes of Day’s lead before a double-bogey at 13. “Sometimes there’s not much you can do,” said Spieth, whose 2015 record in majors remains impressive at two wins, one second place and a tie for fourth. Although he couldn’t join Ben Hogan and Woods as the only men to win three majors in one year, the 22-year-old Spieth became the second-youngest man behind Woods in 1997 to claim the world number one ranking.
With Spieth in solo second place, McIlroy — playing for the first time since rupturing an ankle tendon in July — would have needed a top-six finish to hang on to the top spot.His closing 69 put him in 17th place on 279. “To be number one in the world... is fantastic,” Spieth said. “Certainly it was a lifelong goal of mine, and that was accomplished today.”
As for beating Day, Spieth said, that just never seemed to be in the cards. “It was a stripe show. It was really a clinic to watch,” he said of Day’s driving. “He was sitting there swinging as hard as he could off the tee, and every single drive was right down the middle of the fairway.”