Jimmy Walker, Jason Day finally infuse tension into lackluster PGA Championship

It took 10 long holes into his final round, but Jimmy Walker finally got the PGA Championship crowds at Baltusrol roaring when he holed out from the sand for his first birdie of the day.

When defending champion Jason Day put a hard charge on the eventual wire-to-wire winner down the stretch by answering Walker’s dramatic sand shot with a long birdie putt on 11 to creep to within a stroke of the lead, the game was on at last.

With that one-two punch, the suits at the PGA of America, no doubt, heaved a collective sigh of relief. Because until then, the final round of the last major of the season had proved for much of the day to be little more than the cure for insomnia.

The PGA Championship may not have provided the thrills and chills of the Phil Mickelson-Henrik Stenson epic duel just two weeks earlier at the British Open, but that it held viewers in thrall for most of the leaders’ back nine was something of a coup.

Because the PGA Championship never really had a chance to be anything other than an afterthought in the scheme of major tournaments. The last one on the calendar has never had the cachet of the Masters, U.S. Open or British Open. There’s not a golfer playing who would honestly claim he’d rather earn an Olympic golf medal than a major trophy -- even the Wanamaker Trophy.

“Gold would be cool,” a PGA Tour pro told Sports Illustrated anonymously earlier this year, “but a major is a major.”

Indeed, 71 percent of those SI polled in its annual survey picked the Wanamaker over gold, to just 29 percent opting for Rio honors.

So, yes, the PGA is definitely a major tournament that accounts for four of Tiger Woods’ 14 elite titles, two of Rory McIlroy’s and made Keegan Bradley a household name.

This year, though, squeezed into the men’s tournament schedule as it was between The Open and the looming Olympics, and at the mercy of Mother Nature, “Glory’s Last Shot” seemed doomed to go down as one of the least remarkable major finales in recent history. Especially with soggy conditions moving officials to implement the dreaded lift, clean and place rule -- absolutely verboten in a major under almost any situation.

For nine interminable holes, it seemed as if Walker would sleepwalk his way to his first major title without breaking a sweat -- or par -- and with no one giving serious chase.

Then Walker buried that bunker shot and Day answered. Though the two were a hole apart -- thanks to the weather delay that forced two 36-hole matches on Sunday for some, including Day, and denied the two leaders the chance to go head to head -- a major had suddenly, thankfully, broken out in the swamps of Jersey.

Even Stenson briefly got in on the act until Walker made another birdie on 13 as The Open winner was on his way to a double-bogey on 15. Though Stenson was done, Walker and Day were still rolling, and what had threatened to be a snooze-fest actually went down to the 72nd hole.

The leaders traded a few pars before Day hit an incredible iron shot to within 12 feet of the hole on the par-5 18th and then drained the eagle putt that would have tied the game at 13-under …

… until Walker coolly gave himself a one-shot advantage with this birdie putt on 17.

The rest, as they say, is history. We have come to expect nothing less from a major championship.