Date: October 21, 2015
Author: Martin Blake

Day’s chance to win The Don award

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Jason Day has a chance to be the second golfer in recent years to win the prestigious Don award at the Sport Australia Sports Hall of Fame awards tonight in Melbourne.

Day, who had his finest-ever season on the United States PGA Tour in 2015, could join Adam Scott, who won The Don in 2013 after his history-making triumph at the Masters tournament at Augusta National, Australia's first win of that famous tournament.

Day, who is resting at home in Ohio, won his first major championship, the US PGA, this year as well as four other tournaments. He reached the world No.1 ranking for the first time and is still ranked No. 1, having returned from near-misses at the US Open and the British Open Championship in the lead-up to his win in the PGA.

The Queenslander won plaudits for his courage at the US Open, where he battled vertigo in the second round, at one point collapsing on the course.

The Don award, introduced in 1998, honors the sporting achievement over the previous 12 months that has most inspired the nation.

Other nominees are surfers Mick Fanning, Sally Fitzgibbons and Julian Wilson, footballer Jarryd Hayne, cyclist Anna Meares, ironwoman Miranda Carfrae,  swimmer Emily Seebohm, wheelchair athlete Kurt Fearnley, surf lifesaving ironman Shannon Eckstein and surfer Sally Fitzgibbons.