Jason Day ready to defend title at year’s final golf major

Moving the 98th PGA Championship two weeks after the British Open to accomodate golf’s Rio Olympic return has allowed several favourites to quickly try and move on from disappointments at Royal Troon.

Australia’s world number one Jason Day, who will defend his first major title this week at Baltusrol, shared 22nd at the British Open. He has won seven times in the past year but still seeks more major mastery.

“It does free you up,” Day said of winning a major. “Because you don’t want that tag of ‘best player without a major’ and I had that tag for awhile. And I don’t anymore,” he said.

Third-ranked Jordan Spieth shared 30th at Royal Troon and 37th at the US Open. The US star has struggled since a back-nine meltdown cost him the Masters crown last April.

World number two Dustin Johnson, who won his first major at last month’s US Open, has 13 top-10 finishes in 30 major starts, including a share of ninth at Royal Troon. He will try to be the first man to win the US Open and PGA in the same year since Jack Nicklaus in 1980.

And then there is Phil Mickelson, the 46-year-old US left-hander who won the last PGA staged at Baltusrol in 2005. He was a heartbreaking runner-up to British Open winner Henrik Stenson.