Jason Day predicts fun-filled decade between golf’s new big three

It may have been a long time coming but the manner of Jason Day’s PGA Championship victory in Wisconsin suggests that now he has overcome the biggest hurdle the Australian has what it takes to be a major champion for some time to come.

His play at Whistling Straits in not just reaching the lowest score in relation to par, 20 under, in major championship history, but also seeing off golfer of the year,Jordan Spieth, in a head-to-head showdown, was a performance of remarkable mental strength, a conviction that his time had at last come.

No wonder Day, 27, was crying even before he had tapped in the putt that confirmed he was now a major champion. The outpouring of emotion, shared significantly with his long-time caddie, friend and mentor Colin Swatton, was understandable because Sunday at Whistling Straits was a real now or never moment for Day.

He had been knocking on the door with a series of top-10 finishes stretching back to the 2010 PGA and after six top-five major finishes and two near-misses this season alone, at the US Open and Open, overnight leader Day had decided this was the final round in which he simply had to get the job done. Failure to do so could, by his own admission, have consigned him to an also-ran.

Day said: “I think that kind of in the back of my mind something would have triggered and I would have gone ‘maybe I can’t really finish it off’.”

Day, of course, would come out the right side of the scenario, just as he has managed throughout a life in which he has not been dealt the best of hands.

From a struggling family in Beaudesert, Queensland, Day was 12 when his father died and not going down a path conducive to a well-balanced life.

His dad’s death, in fact, represented a positive turning point for the pre-teen tearaway. Day’s mother borrowed money from relatives and remortgaged the family home to send the youngster to a golf academy across the state and that is where the 12-year-old met Swatton.

“He’s taken me from a kid that was getting in fights at home and getting drunk at 12 and not heading in the right direction to a major champion winner,” Day said of his caddie. “And there’s not many coaches that can say that in many sports. So, he means the world to me. I love him to death... That’s why a lot of emotion came out on 18. That’s why a lot of emotion came out for me.”

Day spoke of his childhood, with no hot water tank in the house; of his mother cutting the lawn with a knife because she could not afford to fix the lawnmower, and of her sacrifice to get him away from there and into a nourishing environment.

“So just to be able to sit in front of you guys today and think about those stories, it gets me emotional knowing that I’m the PGA Champion now and it feels good.”

It is a victory and back story scripted for the gushing vocabulary of Sunday afternoon major golf coverage on US television, a syntax of schmaltz that has been flowing out of silver-tongued presenters mouths since the days of Jack and Arnie and Gary.

For so long they desperately clung on to the coat-tails of Tiger Woods, willing the 14-time major champion back into contention as if their careers depended on him. They probably did, for a good decade or so as the ratings dipped every time the American was absent, but after a season of thrills at the majors, none of them including any briliance from the struggling Woods, the perma-tanned men in their network’s blazers have suddenly realised there could be life after him, after all.

If Rory McIlroy was the heir apparent, the 26-year-old now has some princely siblings vying to inherit Tiger’s throne and in Spieth and Day golf suddenly has the prospect of a new big three, this time spanning three continents, to hopefully emulate the exploits of Nicklaus, Palmer and Player.

Day’s success is clearly not of the overnight variety and his game is of the quality to suggest this major victory at Whistling Straits was no one-hit wonder.

Which means that the triumvirate of McIlroy, Spieth and Day have now won five of the last six majors and the Australian has the confidence to stay the pace with his younger rivals.

“As long as I am healthy, I feel like I’m going to be there a long time. I still want to accomplish that number one goal of mine, which is to be the best player in the world. I’m still motivated and still very hungry for that, even after this win. Stuff like this is just the icing on the top of the cake, when you work so hard and being able to achieve something like this.

“But I think golf is in a very healthy stage now. I mean, I felt like a few years ago, it was kind of three to five years ago, it was kind of struggling a little bit with the identity of who was really going to be that number one player in the world, who was going to be the next best thing, and kind of Rory came out and was really dominating. But there was no-one really kind of challenging him for that role.

“For young guys like myself and Jordan and Rickie Fowler and Hideki Matsuyama, a lot of those guys are starting to play better golf and starting to challenge.

“So what I’m looking forward to in the future is the sheer competition of being able to fight against these guys each week and have that competition and fight against them. It’s going to be a lot of fun over the next five to 10 years.”