NORTON, Mass. --- The final hole gave Jason Day a one-shot lead in the Deutsche Bank Championship. The final hour gave him a good idea of what he might expect for the Labor Day finish.
Day walked off the 15th green with a three-shot lead Sunday, feeling good about separating himself from the field.
It was gone in two holes.
Then came the par-5 18th, where Day stood just off the back of the green in two as he watched Brandt Snedeker make a mess of the easiest hole on the TPC Boston by hitting his approach into the hazard and his fourth shot in deep grass short of the green.
"I was thinking that he was going to just get up-and-down and make bogey, and I was going to make an eagle or birdie," Day said. "That would have given me a nice little cushion going into tomorrow."
It just didn't work out that way.
Day capped off an exciting day with a routine birdie for 5-under-par 66. In another strange twist Sunday, the largest cheer was for the guy who made par. Snedeker chipped in and shot 67, leaving him one shot behind.
"It would have been a tough way to end the day as well as I played coming in," Snedeker said.
Just like so many other times at this tournament, the Deutsche Bank Championship could be up for grabs. And so could the No. 1 ranking.
Tiger Woods could only manage one birdie over the last 11 holes and shot 2-under 69, leaving him tied for 23rd and 10 shots out of the lead. That set the stage for Phil Mickelson or Steve Stricker to end his five-year run atop the world ranking.
Stricker is closer to the lead. Mickelson has better odds.
Both of them might have a tough time catching up to Day, the 22-year-old Australian who won the Byron Nelson Championship in May and is starting to play his best golf during the FedEx Cup playoffs.
- Scott Verplank could no longer hold onto a golf club and figured there was no point in playing.
Verplank was back in Oklahoma on Sunday waiting to get an MRI on his left wrist a day after he withdrew from the Deutsche Bank Championship. He says he has been fighting the injury the past two months, and it reached a point where he could not control where the club was pointed.
CHAMPIONS TOUR: In Pebble Beach, Calif., Ted Schulz won the First Tee Open for his first Champions Tour title, holing a 12-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole at Pebble Beach en route to 2-under-par 70 and a one-stroke victory over Tom Pernice Jr.
EUROPEAN TOUR: In Crans-Sur-Sierre, Switzerland, Miguel Angel Jimenez won the European Masters, shooting 4-under-par 67 to beat Edoardo Molinari by three strokes.
Former Augusta State star Oliver Wilson tied for fifth after shooting a final round 69.
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