Australia's Jason Day rode an emotional wave of crowd support to shoot a final round 70 and win the World Cup of Golf yesterday by two strokes at Royal Melbourne after an enthralling duel with Danish runner-up Thomas Bjorn.
Day, grieving the loss of eight relatives killed in the Philippines by Typhoon Haiyan, holed a nervy clutch putt for par on the par-four 16th to break a stroke clear of Bjorn and embraced his mother, whose own mother was lost in the typhhon, after rolling in the final putt on the 18th.
Day finished with a 10-under total of 274 for his first professional win in Australia, two strokes above Bjorn, who grafted an even-par 71.
Day's heroics also propelled Australia to a runaway 10-stroke victory over the United States in the team component. Denmark and Japan finished tied third, two strokes further behind.
Prior to the tournament, Day said he had hoped his team mate, world number two Adam Scott, would carry him through, but he ended up shouldering the load after the US Masters champion opened with a four-over 75 including a nightmare quintuple bogey on the 12th.
Locked in a two-way battle with Bjorn in the back nine, Day drained a seven-foot putt for a crucial par on the 16th to take a one-stroke lead and held on to celebrate an emotional victory.
“It feels great, I just really don’t know what to think right now,” the world number 18 said after notching just his second PGA Tour win, three years after his maiden title at the Byron Nelson Championship.
“Today I learnt a lot about myself ... I am definitely going to embrace being a World Cup winner tonight and I won’t go too crazy but I will definitely have a drink or two and, you know, right now I am just the happiest guy.”
Day won $1.2 million for sealing individual honours at the biennial tournament, and will share another $600,000 with Scott for winning the team trophy. “Right now we’re in the process of doing something,” Day said when asked about relief efforts in the Philippines.
“Definitely, we’ll probably most likely set something up and definitely be giving some money or raising money and trying to raise awareness to what has really happened over there.
“The devastation and the tragedy that’s gone on over in the Philippines is very difficult for us to see because we’re living in such a great country. “Once you know of someone or are related to someone who has gone through something like that it’s very close to the heart.”
Ireland’s Shane Lowry and Graeme McDowell finished 11th overall. McDowell was one over for the tournament with Lowry eight over par.
