SPRINGFIELD, NJ—At the end of the ‘15 golf season there was much media chatter about the sport having a new version of “The Big Three.” This was in reference to the original Big Three which consisted of Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player. The new version would consist of Aussie Jason Day -- the existing world number one player followed by the likes of American Jordan Spieth and Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy.
What was hatched by a number of media people was slightly premature. As the ‘16 season has unfolded it has become clearly obvious one man is clearly beyond all the others. Open up the envelop please and hear his name loud and clear -- Jason Day.
The 28-year-old has been nothing short of brilliant for his consistency since winning the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits when he turned in a virtuoso performance of -20 for the week. The stretch of world class actually preceded last year’s PGA when Day finished strongly to garner the Canadian Open title. In 22 starts since that win -- Day has won seven times. His other so-called Big Three rivals are simply in his rear view mirror for now.
Coming into Baltusrol for this week’s PGA Championship Day had to deal with an illness to his children and an allergic food reaction faced by his wife. With those events happening Day opted to skip playing a practice round Tuesday and showed up Wednesday and played Baltusrol Lower for the first time --just one practice round. Given all of that the Aussie played a quality conservative first round scoring 68 leaving him just three strokes off the lead of Texan Jimmy Walker.
