Golf: Jason Day targets overtaking Jordan Spieth for PGA Tour Player of the Year award

Australian golfer Jason Day plays his tee shot on the 18th hole during the final round of the 2015 PGA Championship on The Straits Course at Whistling Straits in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, on Aug 16, 2015. PHOTO: AFP

EDISON, NEW JERSEY (Reuters) - Newly-crowned PGA Champion Jason Day sees the FedExCup playoffs as the opportunity for a challenge to golf world No. 1 Jordan Spieth in the voting for the PGA Tour Player of the Year award.

Day is returning to competition at The Barclays this week at Plainfield Country Club after his breakthrough three-stroke success over Spieth at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin.

The 27-year old Australian plans to play all four FedExCup events and is hopeful, despite Spieth having captured two majors and two other PGA Tour titles this season, that winning the FedExCup could lift his own Player of the Year chances.

"The next four weeks starting this week here in New Jersey are very important and to be able to win the FedExCup would be the icing on my season," Day told Reuters on Tuesday at Plainfield.

"If I could snag the FedExCup trophy to go with my PGA Championship victory I could go very close to being named Player of the Year.

"I know it's going to be tough to unseat Jordan because he's played such amazing golf this year but then if I were to capture the FedExCup, it puts my name in the mix for that award, and gives our peers voting on the award someone else's name to think about."

Spieth leads the FedExCup standings with Day in second, 1,710 points behind the young American and the Australian said winning the PGA Championship's Wanamaker Trophy for his maiden major only added to his motivation to win the playoff series and its US$10 million (S$14 million) bonus prize.

"If there is any extra inspiration I need to win the FedExCup then it's been looking each day at the Wanamaker Trophy that's sitting proudly upstairs back home in my office," he said. "I sat there one time last week just looking at it for I don't know how long and just reading all the names on the trophy.

"Now having won one major, it would be nice to go on and win all four."

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