Both Day and Ruffels finished inside the top five respectively on the PGA TOUR and LPGA Tour yet both were distant from the winning score.

Day closed out his Wells Fargo Championship campaign with a 1-under 70 to finish 11 shots back of Rory McIlroy (65) in a tie for fourth while Ruffels was part of one of the most unusual leaderboards ever seen at the Cognizant Founders Cup.

Obviously pleased with a career-best third place finish, at 9-under par Ruffels (71) was 13 shots behind runner-up Madelene Sagstrom (69) who finished two shots back of Rose Zhang (66) at 24-under par.

“Kind of an up-and-down week,” was Ruffels’ summation after a round in which she had five birdies and four bogeys.

“That golf course is kind of like that. Other than Rose and Madelene, everyone was kind of under 10-under.

“There were a lot of bogeys out there and a lot of birdies as well. Just had to hang tough mentally, and I was proud of myself that I did that.”

With the US Women’s Open just two weeks away, Ruffels said it was a strong week in combining her play with her mental game.

“A few things with my swing that I’m working on, I feel like I’m making strides with that with my coach,” she added.

“Just mentally on a golf course like this, just trying to hang tough and just seeing where at that puts you.”

A decade after finishing tied for 15th at the 2014 US PGA Championship, Day will return to Valhalla Golf Club buoyed by his most recent showing.

T4 in Charlotte and game is trending heading into the @pgachampionship 👊🏽 pic.twitter.com/fMiG18nyis

— Jason Day (@JDayGolf) May 13, 2024

A tie for fourth is his best finish since the Genesis Invitational in mid-February as he and coach Chris Como work to bring his ball-striking up to major championship level.

“I’ve had a run over the last month-and-a-half, two months where it’s just been kind of poor,” said Day.

“I’ve been losing a ton of strokes to the field approach to green. Not necessarily on the driver, for instance.

“It’s weird, it’s kind of strange to drive it decently well and to hit it poor coming into the greens.  But I feel like some of the stuff we’re working on, I’ll see little snippets of really good stuff.”

It was a week of celebration for our Kiwi compatriots with Michael Hendry earning his first Japan Golf Tour title in nine years and Ryan Fox securing the first top-five finish of his career on the PGA TOUR.

Just 13 months after being hospitalised with leukaemia, Hendry completed one of golf’s most inspirational comebacks with a one-point win in the modified Stableford format of the For The Players By The Players tournament in Japan.

In his first season as a member of the PGA TOUR, Fox had four birdies in his final six holes to climb into a tie for fourth at the Myrtle Beach Classic in South Carolina.

Photos: Andrew Redington/Getty Images (Day); Elsa/Getty Images (Ruffels)

Results

PGA TOUR
Wells Fargo Championship
Quail Hollow Club, Charlotte, North Carolina
1          Rory McIlroy    67-68-67-65—267       $US3.6m
T4        Jason Day        68-67-73-70—278       $880,000
T29      Adam Scott      71-71-73-71—286       $130,500
T38      Cam Davis       70-69-72-77—288       $88,500

Myrtle Beach Classic
The Dunes Golf and Beach Club, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
1          Chris Gotterup             66-64-65-67—262       $US720,000
T4        Ryan Fox (NZ)               70-66-66-67—269       $147,000
MC       Aaron Baddeley           71-70—141
MC       Harrison Endycott        66-75—141

LPGA Tour
Cognizant Founders Cup
Upper Montclair Country Club, Clifton, New Jersey
1          Rose Zhang                  63-68-67-66—264       $US450,000
3          Gabriela Ruffels           69-72-67-71—279       $201,479
T7        Minjee Lee                   70-70-72-69—281       $69,492
T18      Hannah Green              69-71-72-71—283       $33,801
T18      Stephanie Kyriacou      66-79-66-72—283       $33,801
T35      Sarah Kemp                 69-72-74-71—286       $15,966
T35      Lydia Ko (NZ)                69-71-75-71—286       $15,966
T46      Grace Kim                    68-74-75-70—287       $11,784
MC       Robyn Choi                  72-75—147
MC       Karis Davidson             78-71—149
MC       Hira Naveed                 75-78—153

Japan Golf Tour
For The Players By The Players
THE CLUB Golf Village, Gunma
Modified Stableford format
1          Michael Hendry (NZ)   14-5-13-6—38 ¥10m
T48      Brad Kennedy              3-6-2-3—14    ¥141,500
MC       Anthony Quayle           6-(-3)— – 3

PGA TOUR Champions
Regions Tradition
Greystone G&CC, Birmingham, Alabama
1          Doug Barron                65-72-66-68—271       $390,000
2          Steven Alker (NZ)         69-71-70-63—273       $228,800
T11      Stuart Appleby             71-67-71-70—279       $59,800
T14      Richard Green              73-69-73-66—281       $45,500
T18      Mark Hensby               74-67-70-71—282       $35,555
T37      Rod Pampling              68-76-75-67—286       $14,560
T50      Michael Campbell (NZ) 70-75-75-70—290       $7,800
T52      John Senden                72-76-75-68—291       $6,292
T67      Steve Allan                   69-84-69-73—295       $2,548

Ladies European Tour
Aramco Team Series Presented by PIF – Korea
New Korea Country Club, Korea
1          Hyo-Joo Kim                68-70-68—206 $US69,714.75
T27      Momoka Kobori (NZ)   76-71-74—221 $4,587.23
T45      Kirsten Rudgeley          75-74-75—224 $2,378.05

Korean PGA
KPGA Classic
Golf Zone County Yeongam 45
Modified Stableford format
1          Chanwoo Kim              15-8-2-8—33   KRW140,618,722
T7        Kevin Chun (NZ)           9-13-(-5)-11—28         KRW19,124,146
T13      Sungjin Yeo                  8-5-1-11—25   KRW13,499,397
T35      Wonjoon Lee                12-6-(-6)-4—16           4,077,942
MC       Junseok Lee                  5-4—9

Epson Tour
Carlisle Arizona Women’s Golf Classic
TPC Scottsdale (Champions Cse), Scottsdale, Arizona
1          Ruixin Liu                     64-72-70-64—270       $US60,000
T17      Su Oh                          68-70-72-69—279       $5,302
T21      Fiona Xu (NZ)               70-69-70-71—280       $4,534
T26      Cassie Porter                67-73-75-66—281       $3,737
MC       Amelia Garvey (NZ)      76-69—145