Jimmy Walker wins a marathon at the PGA Championship

Jimmy Walker wins a marathon at the PGA Championship

In the longest final day at the PGA Championship in 64 years, Walker produced three big birdies on the back nine at Baltusrol and held his nerve to the very end Sunday against the No. 1 player in the world.

Walker closed with a 3-under-par 67 for a one-shot victory over defending champion Jason Day.

Walker calmly pumped his fist twice and embraced his caddie, Andy Sanders, whom he met at Baltusrol in the 2000 U.S. Amateur when they played a practice round.

“Sometimes, things just don’t come easy,” Walker said after hoisting the 37-pound Wanamaker Trophy, amazing that he had any strength left after a 36-hole final day brought on my rain over the weekend.

Day, trying to join Tiger Woods as the only back-to-back winners of the PGA Championship in stroke play, came to the 18th green with his son to watch the finish and quickly found Walker.

In a most peculiar final day at a major, the PGA Championship allowed for preferred lies — that doesn’t happen in a major — because of nearly 4 inches of rain during the week that drenched the Lower Course.

Desperate to beat the clock and avoid a second straight Monday finish at Baltusrol, the pairings stayed the same for the final round.

Walker and Day were playing with occasional mud on their golf balls on the back nine of the third round Sunday morning as some players behind them were able to lift, clean and place their golf balls in short grass in the fourth round.

Walker twice had to back off his 8-foot birdie putt on the 17th when he heard the crowd erupt after Day’s shot into the 18th.

British Open champion Henrik Stenson, trying to join Ben Hogan as the only players to win back-to-back majors at age 40, finally faded away with a double bogey on the 15th hole.

Brooks Koepka, playing for the first time since he pulled out of the Bridgestone Invitational one month ago because of an ankle injury, didn’t make a birdie until the 15th hole and closed with a 70 to tie for fourth.

Day moved one shot off the lead with a 20-foot birdie putt at No. 11, but he didn’t have another birdie chance closer than 25 feet until the two par-5s at the end.

[...] the Australian competed to the end with his driving iron off the tee at 18 and a 3-wood that led him to shout, “Get back there!” And it did.

More amazing than Walker playing bogey-free for his first major was that the PGA Championship even finished.

[...] it was the first time since Jim Turnesa won the 1952 PGA Championship in a 36-hole match that the winner played so many holes on the final day.