After a whirlwind run to end his season Jason Day will leave East Lake Golf Club with mixed emotions, ending the most successful PGA TOUR season ever by an Australian but losing the World Number 1 ranking in the process.

Day’s stunning play over the last six weeks had rocketed him to the top of the world game and he could have capped an almost perfect year by winning the TOUR Championship and the associated $10 million FedEx Cup
bonus in Atlanta.

But it wasn’t to be for the 27-year-old who, despite making three straight birdies to start his week, couldn’t sustain his other worldly form of recent weeks over the course of the four days.

A final round 68 saw Day finish a respectable 2-under for the week and T10 but he was seven shots behind winner Jordan Spieth who claimed not only the tournament but the $10 million FedEx Cup bonus and the World Number 1 ranking as well.

While Day will be disappointed with the final result he has much to be proud of after a 2015 which will go down as the breakout year in his career.

Long earmarked as Australia’s next potentially world beating player, Day had hovered on the edge of the biggest events for five years before finally breaking his Major drought with a record setting performance at Whistling Straits last month.

That emotional win opened the floodgates for Day who went on to win two of the four FedEx Cup play-off events in a run of four victories in six starts.

Five victories for the year, including that maiden Major, makes Day’s season easily the best by an Australian, eclipsing Greg Norman’s three win seasons of 1986 and 1995 and equalling Jim Ferrier’s 1951 performance.

Now touted as one of the new ‘Big Three’ alongside Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy, Australian golf fans have much to look forward to as the 2016 season approaches.

Not only was 2015 a breakout year for Day but also for Steven Bowditch, the only other Australian to make this week’s 30-man field in Atlanta.

Bowditch finished two shots behind Day this week and T12 but, like his fellow Queenslander, has only positives to take from the season.

Not only did Bowditch notch his second PGA TOUR victory at the Byron Nelson tournament but found a new level of consistency in his game which was ultimately rewarded with a Captain’s pick for next month’s Presidents Cup.

In a career marked by flashes of brilliance followed by runs of indifference, 2015 was an important year for Bowditch whose natural talent stands up in any company.

With a new found ability to keep big numbers off his card and make the best of bad rounds, Bowditch is set to become a regular contender at events in America in coming years.

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