it's a little different because for me I'm not as popular as those guys and I understand that. I'm kind of a boring person whereas Rory is really -- I mean Rory, Rickie are very popular. They're the popular kids in school. Jordan is getting that popular, starting to become a lot more popular and I'm just a nerd in the back which is fine.
For a couple years now, there's been this hypothetical debate about who the best golfer in the world is when everyone is playing their best. It's a futile exercise, of course, because you never get everyone playing at the same level every round, every event. But it's the kind of manichean clarity we want in the post-Tiger era, when there is no singular star owning the game but rather a handful of super-talents. Rory McIlroy was the next Tiger after his tour de force 2014 season. Then it was Jordan Spieth after his historic 2015 campaign. Now, it's Jason Day.
Leave behind the "best at their best" debate, and there's really little question about Day's current credentials as the top player in the world. He's ranked No. 1, and while Spieth was the clear 2015 Player of the Year no one has come close to Day's work over the past 10 months. This win at The Players was his seventh in 17 starts, which is a pace that only Tiger could set (and he did, over and over and over). Day is winning at a clip that even his ultra-talented contemporaries cannot match right now, and it has to be deflating.
Spieth said as much on Saturday when he went home with a missed cut while Day broke a previously-thought untouchable 36-hole scoring record.
"It's tough when you're getting shellacked by 15 shots in the same group, you know?" Spieth said. "When someone's birdieing almost every single hole, every other hole, you start to wonder why in the world you aren't making any of them."
Day's dominance certainly has Spieth and Rory on notice and probably a little frustrated. There's no real hole in his game. He's as long off the tee as almost anyone, bombing 350-yard drives down the center with consistency. There are a lot of players these days with that kind of power, but Day also does it with his short game and putting. He's No. 2 on Tour in strokes gained putting, the most important putting stat. That stat and his distance off the tee are an almost unfair combination and he's obliterating fields with it.
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