At a tournament he described as becoming more sprint than marathon because of constant weather delays, Jason Day put up a brave fight though came up two shots shy of a play-off at the Zurich Classic.

With storms seeing the tournament cut to 54 holes and spilling over to a Monday finish, Day chased hard in the third and final round but despite a brilliant 6-under 66 eventually ran out of time.

It was a gutsy showing from the World Number 1 whose tournament started in bizarre fashion when he raced to the turn on day one in 5-under but made four bogies against two birdies on his second nine to post 3-under.

The roller coaster start must have triggered something in the Queenslander who made only one more bogey for the rest of the tournament on his way to a 13-under total.

At T5 Day was the best of the Australians on the leaderboard though there were some encouraging performances from the rest.

Stuart Appleby posted his best result of the year at T11, the vital $154,000 cheque making a large dent in the more than $600,000 he needs to earn this year to keep his Tour card.

With eight events remaining on his major medical extension, Appleby needs to amass another $258,833 to ensure full playing privileges for 2017 and, after good back-to-back weeks at the Valero Texas Open (T21) and again here, he will be confident of his chances.

Rookie Professional Ryan Ruffels also impressed with his best finish in six starts on the world’s biggest Tour, the 17-year-old T20 at 8-under for the three rounds.

Ruffels is allowed seven sponsor exemptions as a non member of the Tour and with six of those now gone it is unlikely he will earn a card for 2017.

However, he has gained invaluable experience and this week’s performance will give him great confidence after three straight missed cuts in his previous three starts.

Also finishing T20 were John Senden and Marc Leishman, the result a much needed positive for Senden after an indifferent season to date.

Senden now moves into the top-125 on the FedEx Cup standings which will be an important mental boost if nothing else.

Cameron Percy, Aaron Baddeley, Geoff Ogilvy and Rhein Gibson were the other Australians to make the cut though all finished in the bottom half of the field.

Ogilvy will be somewhat disappointed with his result after a brilliant opening round 67 had him in the top-5 but he will also take plenty of positives after a year that had seen him make just three cuts in eight starts prior to this week.