Davis steals thunder down under

Jason Day, Jordan Spieth, Matt Jones, Jonas Blixt, Cameron Smith – these were the PGA TOUR winners young Australian Cameron Davis upstaged with a blistering final round at the Australian Open. Davis, who played his rookie season on the MacKenzie Tour – PGA TOUR Canada this year but failed to fire a shot, proved his big game acumen with a 7-under 64 in high winds at The Australian Golf Club. His 11-under total was enough to join the likes of Gene Sarazen, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Tom Watson, Greg Norman, Rory McIlroy and Spieth as winners of the Stonehaven Cup. While he sat on cloud nine after winning the fifth oldest national championship in the history of golf, Davis immediately started to shift his focus to final stage of Web.Com Tour Q-School set for a week’s time. He hopes to get status there but also has higher aspirations. The 6-foot, 4-inch Davis played in the OHL Classic at Mayakoba last season and was T15 in his only PGA TOUR event but was unable to keep up the form in Canada, finishing 76th on the order of merit. He’s hopeful this win might encourage a few tournament directors to extend invitations to TOUR events. “I always felt like if I play my very best golf I’d be able to compete (on the PGA TOUR),� the 22-year-old Davis said. “I’m going to try my best to come down from the excitement I’ve obviously got after winning this and then it’s another big week that we’ve got to get on top of. “I feel like I’m playing well obviously at the moment, so I’m feeling pretty good going into final stage, but it’s a whole different week, whole different golf course. “We’ve got to go back to work, start mapping the golf courses, get there early, just treat it like another week and you’ve got to start from scratch again.� For Day, it was a gut-wrenching finish to a tough year. Holding the 54-hole lead the 10-time PGA TOUR winner was the prohibitive favorite but shot a dismal 73 to drop to fifth. It’s the first time since 2012 he’s failed to have a win anywhere in the world and sends him into 2018 trying to find his feet once more. “It’s obviously a little bit disappointing to come out and not finish it, but I’ve just got to kind of look back on it and see what I need to do for next time, because you can’t be perfect all the time and I played three terrific rounds and I just didn’t put it together on Sunday,� Day said. “When you hold the lead and when everyone is expecting you to win, there’s a bit of added pressure. I was on the wrong side of momentum and if I could just get on the right side of momentum it may have been a different outcome.� Jones bogeyed four of his first six holes Sunday before storming back with seven birdies. Sadly he needed eight. Blixt had a 12-footer on the last to force a playoff only to leave it short. Their consolation was a berth in the 2018 Open Championship at Carnoustie along with Davis. Smith bogeyed the 13th and 15th holes down the stretch to surrender his chances. And the defending champion Spieth actually played nicely for a 67, moving him into eighth place and feeling better as he heads to the Hero World Challenge. Spieth failed to make many putts of importance throughout the week despite some impressive ball-striking. But with coach Cam McCormick as acting caddie while Michael Greller spends time with his new child the Texan is hopeful the learning curve from Sydney will be easier at Albany. “I’m playing beautifully, the putter felt great today, I found a nice trigger and I was getting through my putts a lot better than I was at the beginning of the week, and had that happened the whole week, I would definitely have been in contention,� Spieth said. “The game feels good, so I’ll get in there and having Cam see pretty much all the swings that I hit on the range and on the golf course, and all the putts, I have that kind of extra confidence that I know where things are throughout the swing and, so it should be easy, I shouldn’t have too many questions next week, which will be nice.�

Click here to read the full article…