HAVEN, Wis. — Jason Day earned his first major title Sunday, winning the P.G.A. Championship by three strokes over Jordan Spieth at Whistling Straits.
Day finished 20 under par, a major record.
Six times since 2013, Day had posted top-10 finishes in major tournaments, his progress overshadowed by Rory McIlroy and Spieth, who combined for 10 top-10 finishes in that span, including four victories. Day doggedly carried on, and on a sweltering Sunday, he finally made it to the top.
It was his fifth PGA Tour victory and his third this year.
Day, a 27-year-old Australian, took a two-stroke lead into the final round, but even his most ardent supporters wondered if he might wilt under the heat from a remorseless sun and ruthless Spieth, who was aiming to become the third man, and the first since Tiger Woods in 2000, to win three professional majors in the same year.
It was the third straight major in which Day had held at least a share of the 54-hole lead, and the hard-earned calluses he had developed in his closing rounds at the United States Open and the British Open helped him hold his position. He credited his experience at the United States Open, where he played his last three rounds despite vertigo, with bolstering his belief that he could push through any barriers, mental or physical.
“I felt like it was a real kind of growing moment for me because every now and then, we get to a point in our games where it’s O.K. to just go, ‘O.K., it’s all right; I can just hit it in the middle of the green, or I don’t really need to hole this putt,’ ” Day said. “It’s taken a long time to get to the point where I can actually feel a lot more comfortable in a position where I can just go out and attack.”
Day settled himself on Sunday with a birdie on No. 2, the first of four he made on the front nine (against one bogey) to make the turn with a four-stroke lead over Spieth and Justin Rose and a two-shot lead over Branden Grace of South Africa, who was playing in the pairing directly ahead of him.
Grace, 27, who had contended down the stretch at the United States Open, had a double bogey at the 10th hole that slowed his momentum. Spieth, 22, recorded two bogeys and three birdies on the front nine.
Day was steady on the back nine until a bogey on the 15th. But he followed that with a birdie on the next hole and held off Spieth with a final-round 67.
McIlroy, who shot a 69 for a 9-under 279 and a top-20 finish, said he was “delighted” for Day.
“It’s always great to see guys win their first major,” said McIlroy, a four-time major winner. “I can still remember what mine felt like and I didn’t have as many close calls as he had. So I’m sure it will be extra-special and he’ll feel a great sense of satisfaction.”
A runner-up finish at the P.G.A. capped a sublime major season for Spieth, who won the Masters and the United States Open, then came up just short of the playoff at the British Open.
As Day extended his lead on the back, Spieth’s eyes turned to no small consolation prize. By finishing alone in third or better, he snapped McIlroy’s 55-week reign at No. 1. McIlroy, who has spent a total of 93 weeks as the world’s top male golfer, said after his round, with Spieth still on the course, “If he was to get to No. 1 today, I’d be the first to congratulate him because I know the kind of golf you have to play to get to that spot.”
With the victory, Day moved to third in the rankings, meaning that golf’s top three have an average age of 25.
When Woods was in his mid-20s, he had no one in his peer group to push him. Spieth, McIlroy and Day are but the tip of an iceberg of a globe-spanning generation, inspired by Woods to take up the game, that could end up being golf’s greatest.
It includes the American Rickie Fowler, 26, who in May won the Players Championship, considered the most prestigious nonmajor; Grace, the third-place finisher here and a six-time European Tour winner; Hideki Matsuyama, 23, of Japan, whose six top-five showings on the PGA Tour this wraparound season included a fifth at the Masters; and another American, Brooks Koepka, 25, a tour winner this year who posted his second consecutive top-10 finish in a major.
Martin Kaymer of Germany was 25 when he won the 2010 P.G.A. Championship at Whistling Straits. For the final round that year, he was paired with an impressionable 22-year-old: Day, who ended up tied for 10th. Recalling that round, Day said, “I learned you don’t have to hit it perfect to win a major; you just have to stay patient.”
He added, “It was just really a good experience just kind of seeing how it’s done, how it is to win a major championship.”
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