Does anyone have Rexona’s number? We need another edition of the greatest show to ever air on television – Australia’s Greatest Athlete.
Though this time the title should just be delivered upon appointment, by me, in this article.
And the recipient? Well, if you read the headline you’d have half a clue.
It’s Jason Day.
Day’s resume for 2015 is impressive, but it’s more representative of a long, steady build-up where he has built his game to be unmatchable when it’s on song.
Grinding away on the USPGA Tour mightn’t seem that glamorous (it is though, Day has earned over $7 million this year), and players certainly get lost in the spectrum.
But I have absolutely no doubt Jason is the best sportsperson in the world who hails from Australia right now.
Now number three in golf the world behind Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth, Day has been the best player on Tour in the last two months, and probably second best for the year, but only by a whisker.
No illness at the US Open, and a bit more time to prepare for the subsequent Open Championship could have seen the Aussie walk away with more than one major in 2015.
Long and straight drives, the highest on Tour. Accurate irons, and a ridiculously hot putter has seen Day sweep aside the competition in the last two events he has played.
There’s barely been the need to scramble, but when he has had to he’s got it done – the glaring exception being on the third day at St Andrews, which pretty well cost him the tournament.
Golf and its professional circuit is played over a whopping 43 weeks of the year. There are USPGA events, European Tour events, Masters events, majors, playoffs and pro-ams, and then there’s weird formats like the President’s and Ryder Cups that people pretend to understand, but really have no clue.
I jest, but not about the saturation of the sport. There’s so much of it played, sometimes it’s hard to recognise just how big it is when one of your own is excelling each and every time he steps out onto the course. Because that’s how it is with Jason Day at the moment.
He just won his first major. Now because it wasn’t the Masters or the Open, it probably didn’t get as much coverage as it might have, but he still won it.
He just won the first event of the USPGA Tour playoffs, where only the top 125 players on Tour are invited to participate.
He’s a good shake at capturing the world number 1 ranking by next Monday if he plays half as well as he did last weekend.
Day is one of the top three in terms of average length of the tee. He’s the second best putter on Tour. He averages the most birdies on Tour.
Between Day and close rivals Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy, you have three guys playing exceptionally each and every week – no matter what the course, or what the conditions.
It’s like having three Tiger Woods circa 2005 battling it out each week (when Rory’s not getting himself injured), and one of them is an Aussie.
Day has won three of his last four times he has played on Tour. The one he didn’t win was a 12th place finish at a WGC event. The two events before that were the US and British Open, where he came in a tie for ninth and a tie for fourth.
You know you’re playing well when you break the record for the best score ever in a major – 20-under on a difficult course in Whistling Straits.
Some of the comments from his peers told the real story; this wasn’t a dolly of a victory. Jordan Spieth, the best golfer for a majority of 2015, was at the top of his game across those four days. Spieth and his fellow players were in awe that Day managed to shoot so low on that course, in those conditions.
If that wasn’t good enough, how about a six-shot victory to follow it up?
On a very tricky course at the Barclays, one that favoured accurate irons and excellent putting, Day did it again.
So from walloping them 350 metres down the middle at Whistling Straits and Chambers Bay (Where Day suffered from vertigo from the second day onwards) to hitting 1 irons 250m to put himself into perfect position in the first event of the PGA playoffs,
It might be blasphemous, but you know the old saying about holding a 1 iron up in a lightning storm. Jason Day is that good right now.
The resume is there.
And is there a better Australian doing anything in the sporting world right now?
I think not. Not even Jarryd Hayne.
He’s also a better bloke than Nick Kyrgios. Somehow most other people who write about Jason Day feel compelled to compare the two, so there you go.
Why not build your own fantasy team? Take on other players for a chance to win cash prizes on your favourite sports. Try out Draftstars and PlayUp to put your money where your mouth is! What are you really gambling with? Set a deposit limit.
An “unshakeable” Scottie Scheffler has claimed his second Masters green jacket in three years, carding a four-under-par 68 to finish four shots clear of…
A day after setting a tournament record in the Masters, Tiger Woods has suffered an unwanted milestone at Augusta National. Woods insisted he could…
Tiger Woods is on the prowl for a sixth green jacket after penning another glorious chapter in his storied career with a record-breaking 24th…
Bryson DeChambeau has laid some demons to rest with a stunning back-nine birdie barrage to seize the first-round lead at the weather-hit Masters. The…
A year after being persona non grata at Augusta National, Australian golf legend Greg Norman is back at the Masters, declaring "the boss is…
Australian golf star Min Woo Lee has revealed he will play the Masters with a broken finger after suffering the freak injury in the…
