Jason Day Wins P.G.A. Championship in a Record-Shattering Breakthrough
By KAREN CROUSE

HAVEN, Wis. — After a 314-yard drive on the par-5 16th hole at Whistling Straits, Jason Day had a decision to make. Ahead by three strokes in his bid to win his first major championship, Day could lay up with his next shot, which was the smart but conservative move, or go for the green as if he had nothing to lose.

Day did not deliberate for long. In the previous two majors, he had held at least a share of the 54-hole lead and had failed to win. Six times since 2013, he had posted top-10 finishes at golf’s four biggest annual events.

He was going to win the 97th P.G.A. Championship or go down swinging from his heels. Using his 4-iron, Day hit a towering draw that landed on the fringe of the green. He made a birdie to get to 20 under par, and that was where he finished, closing with a five-under 67 to beat Jordan Spieth by three strokes.

Branden Grace of South Africa finished third at 15 under, one stroke ahead of Justin Rose of England.

Day’s 20-under-par score set a major championship record for strokes under par, beating by one the mark set at the 2000 British Open by Tiger Woods, whose success inspired Day to pursue golf as a career. As a teenager in his native Australia, Day read a biography about Woods that fanned the flames of his desire.

“It had results from age 13 to when he turned professional, and the scores were just amazing,” Day said in an interview last year. “It was like, ‘Why am I not shooting these scores?’ That book inspired me to practice and really work on my game.”

To alter the major championship record book at Woods’s expense, Day said, “is fantastic — it’s an amazing feeling.”

Woods, a 14-time major winner, missed the cut here, but he cast an ethereal shadow over the final pairing, Day and Spieth. While Day motored full speed ahead toward Woods’s major record, Spieth tried in vain to draft off his wake. After titles at the Masters and the United States Open, Spieth, 22, was trying to become the third man, and the first since Woods in 2000, to win three professional majors in the same year. He carded a 68 to complete his 16 rounds at this year’s major tournaments in 54 under. He set the record spree rolling in April by tying the Masters record of 18 under.

After Sunday’s tournament, Woods wrote on Twitter: “Very happy for Jason. Great dude and well deserved. Hats off to Jordan, incredible season.”

If a clairvoyant had told Spieth he would shoot a 17-under 271 for the week, he would have prepared a victory speech. He called Day’s performance “a clinic to watch.”

“He was sitting there swinging as hard as he could off the tee,” Spieth said, adding: “I mean, power to him. He played like he had won seven or eight majors before.”

All was not lost for Spieth, who supplanted Rory McIlroy at No. 1, ending McIlroy’s 55-week reign.

“It’s by far the best loss I think I’ve ever had,” Spieth said.

He added: “To be No. 1 as a team is fantastic. It certainly was a lifelong goal of mine that was accomplished today.”

McIlroy, who shot a 69 for a nine-under 279 and a 17th-place finish, has spent a total of 93 weeks as the world’s top male golfer. He said after his round, with Spieth still on the course, “If he was to get to No. 1 today, I’d be the first to congratulate him because I know the kind of golf you have to play to get to that spot.”

With the victory, Day moved to third in the rankings, meaning that golf’s top three have an average age of 25.

When Woods was in his mid-20s, he had no one in his peer group to push him. Spieth, McIlroy and Day are but the tip of an iceberg of a globe-spanning generation, inspired by Woods to take up the game, that could end up being golf’s greatest.

It includes the American Rickie Fowler, 26, who in May won the Players Championship, considered the most prestigious nonmajor; Grace, 27, a six-time European Tour winner; Hideki Matsuyama of Japan, 23, whose six top-five showings this season included fifth place at the Masters; and Brooks Koepka, 25, who posted his second consecutive top-10 finish in a major.

Day’s move up the rankings was made possible, he said, by his fall down the leaderboard at the United States Open in June. He played the last three rounds with vertigo and was on the verge of walking off the course a few times. By grinding out a tie for ninth, Day proved to himself that he had the fortitude to break through the ceiling of his comfort zone.

“It was good for me to understand how far I could really push myself and really understand that it’s O.K. to go out there and just keep battling,” Day said. “I felt like it was a real kind of growing moment for me, because every now and then we get to a point in our games where it’s O.K. to just go, ‘O.K., it’s all right; I can just hit it in the middle of the green,’ or ‘I don’t really need to hole this putt.’ It’s taken a long time to get to point where I can actually feel a lot more comfortable in a position where I can just go out and attack.”

The hard-earned calluses that Day developed in his closing rounds at the United States Open and the British Open, where he tied for fourth with Spieth, helped him hold his position Sunday. He settled himself with a birdie on No. 2, the first of four he made on the front nine (against one bogey). He made the turn with a four-stroke lead over Spieth and Rose and a two-shot lead over Grace, who was playing in the pairing directly ahead of him.

A double bogey at No. 10 slowed Grace’s momentum, and Day did not offer his chasers an opening on the back nine, even after a bogey on the 15th.

Afterward, Day became emotional when he talked about how his toughest loss — the death of his father from stomach cancer when Day was 12 — made his golf career possible. After his father’s death, Day began abusing alcohol and getting into fights in school.

His mother, fearful of losing him to the streets, sold their home and borrowed money from relatives to send Day to a boarding school, where he came under the tutelage of Colin Swatton. Fifteen years later, Swatton is Day’s swing coach, caddie, mentor and confidant.

“To have him walk up the 18th hole with me was just a special, special thing that I could never forget,” Day said.

For a few years, Day has been considered perhaps the best golfer not to have won a major. It is a label he is relieved to have shed.

“Knowing that I had the 54-hole lead for the last three majors and not being able to finish, it would have been tough for me mentally to really kind of come back from that,” Day said. “Even though I feel like I’m a positive person, 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.’ ”

PGA錦標賽/破最低桿紀錄 戴伊抱四大賽首冠

經過5年努力，澳洲高球好手戴伊（Jason Day）終於拿下個人生涯四大賽首冠。今年最後一場四大賽PGA錦標賽，戴伊以-20桿的268桿奪冠，也打破由老虎伍茲（Tiger Woods）在2000英國公開賽所創下-19桿的四大賽最低桿數紀錄。

戴伊在今年美國公開賽、英國公開賽都曾站上領先位置，但最後都未能如願獲勝，今天在PGA錦標賽終於揚眉吐氣，也終結外界5年來質疑他的聲浪。

戴伊在PGA錦標賽從第一輪到了最後一輪維持穩定，沒給緊追在後的史皮斯機會。史皮斯以總桿數271桿屈居第2，面對戴伊強勢表現，史皮斯說，「我打到無能為力。」

戴伊說，「今天能夠奪冠，特別是能擊敗最被看好的史皮斯，感覺棒極了。要是沒能成功，對我而言將會很難熬，即便我是個樂觀的人，仍會因此受到影響。」他低於總桿數20桿，打破老虎伍茲2000年英國公開賽的19桿成績。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/17/sports/golf/jason-day-wins-pga-championship-for-first-major-title.html

2015-08-17．聯合晚報．A10．運動．特約記者李修涵