SPRINGFIELD, N.J. — When the rain finally stopped late Sunday afternoon at the 2016 P.G.A. Championship, two of golf’s battle-hardened heavyweights were chasing a tenderfoot in the crucible of a final round at a major championship event.
Henrik Stenson, who two weeks earlier had set records in winning the British Open, and Jason Day, the world’s top-ranked player and the defending P.G.A. champion, were charging at the Baltusrol Golf Club and lending welcomed luster to the top of the leaderboard.
And who were Stenson and Day stalking for the last major title of the season?
It was Jimmy Walker, a 37-year-old Texan who had missed the cut at his last two majors, never finished higher than a tie for seventh at any major and was perhaps best known on the PGA Tour for his unusual hobby: astrophotography.