Jordan Spieth fans yelled ‘choke’ at Jason Day in PGA finale

Jason Day had to battle more than a relentless Jordan Spieth in Sunday’s PGA Championship duel between the eventual winner and runner-up. In his bid to win his first major title, Day also had to ward off the chanting of ignorant Spieth supporters yelling “Choke! Choke! Choke!” at the 54-hole leader.

“He was a heavy favorite. I could hear the fans,” the Sydney Morning Herald said Day told ESPN after he fired a final-round 5-under 67 to set a new major scoring record of 20-under. “Some people were out there going ‘choke, choke, choke’ to me. Some people weren’t very friendly.”

Much to the disappointment of the followers of the popular young Texan, for whom Whistling Straits on the shores of Lake Michigan was more a home game than it was for Day, the 27-year-old Australian blocked out the negativity and emerged triumphant. He did so by prevailing over Spieth by three shots and smashing the old 72-hole major championship scoring mark of 19-under set by Tiger Woods at the 2000 British Open.

It was a testament to Day’s psychological strength that he found a way to close out a grand slam event after holding at least a share of the lead heading into the finale in the last three majors and folding down the stretch in the previous two.

“I knew today was going to be tough, but I didn’t realize how tough it was going to be,” Day told reporters after his emotional victory. “I learned a lot about myself, again, being able to finish the way I did. The experiences that I’ve had in the past with previous major finishes has definitely helped me prepare myself for a moment like this.”

That moment came after Day staved off the two-time major champ who was trying to become the first player to win the three U.S. majors in the same year and fervently hoping that his playing opponent would trip up. It was a physical and mental grind unlike any Day had experienced and he wondered — after literally collapsing from vertigo at the U.S. Open and then falling a stroke shy of making the playoff at St. Andrews — how he would respond the next time had he faltered on Sunday.

“It would have been very tough for me to kind of come back from a major championship such as this if I didn’t finish it off,” he said. “It would have been tough for me mentally, to really kind of come back from that. 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.’”

He need wonder no longer, and if the goons cheering for their guy by aggressively rooting for his rival to fail knew of Day’s childhood struggles, perhaps they would have acted less boorishly. After his father died of cancer when Day was 12, his mother made tremendous sacrifices to send her son to golf school. There he met Col Swatton, his longtime coach and caddie, and the man Day credits with saving his life.

“I’ve changed so much from where I was and what I saw as a kid to where I am now,” Day candidly shared Sunday night. “I remember watching [his mother] cut the lawn with a knife because we couldn’t afford to fix the lawn mower. I remember not having a hot water tank, so we had to use a kettle for hot showers. So, you know, we would put the kettle on and go have a shower, and then my mom would come bring three or four kettles in, just to heat them up. And it would take five, 10 minutes for every kettle to heat up.”

After overcoming such real-life obstacles, a few boisterous buffoons were not about to spoil the greatest moment in Day’s professional life.

“Something clicked inside of me [at the Open Championship],” he said. “I could not put my finger on what happened and why it clicked, but it just happened. And even though there could be stuff flying around me out there on the golf course, the ability to keep my cool and keep calm has happened since [then].”

★★★

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