Jason Day (golf)
You couldn’t call Jason Day’s golf robotic because no-one who hits a drawing 4-iron over a chasm of lost-ball death-grass on the 16th hole in the final round of a major championship – while leading by three and never having won one – plays golf like a robot. To hit shots like Day did down the stretch in Whistling Straits, under the pump from golf’s other brilliant youngster, Jordan Spieth, you need flair and on-tap skill, and balls of industrial tungsten. Day can play ridiculous golf.
Yet at times in 2015, as he applied his brilliant game to the world’s most testing environs, there was a machine-like quality about him. So often was he up there, his wins were inevitable. He was so strong and long, skilled and precise. So repetitiously did he bang it out there, time after time – down the guts, onto the green, into the hole – that he became the world’s No1, the best golfer on the planet.
Other numbers: five PGA Tour victories including the PGA Championship; $US9.4 million in prize money; bare inches from a play-off in the Open Championship at St Andrews; currently No2 in the world behind Spieth and ahead of Rory McIlroy with whom he shares a 20-something big three. And with a host of Bubbas, Rickies, Henriks, Zachs, Sergios and Adams – and, yes, hopefully, even Tigers – along with any number of tour punks, Day, at 28, is at the vanguard of an exciting time for golf. MC
Massimo Luongo (football)
Having left APIA Leichhardt Tigers and Australia in 2011 to pursue his career on the other side of the world, initially with Tottenham Hotspur and then Ipswich Town and Swindon Town, Massimo Luongo was hardly a household name when the bells rang in 2015. But then came his inclusion in Ange Postecoglou’s Asian Cup squad in January and young midfielder’s world was to change forever. The coach put his faith in the then 22-year-old and three weeks later, a period bookended by goals he scored in the opener against Kuwait and the final against South Korea, not only did Luongo find himself an Asian champion, he had also taken his place on the team of the tournament and was voted the player of the tournament.
Plaudits flowed and he was soon after dubbed “the David Beckham of Asia” by his coach at Swindon, who may or may not have been trying to add a zero to his prized asset’s price tag with interested Premier League clubs sniffing around. In the end, a move to Championship side Queens Park Rangers followed and Luongo’s star showed no sign of diminishing during an impressive start to his career with the west London club at the beginning of the 2015-16 season.
The afterburners which had propelled him so far so quickly ran out of fuel towards the end of the year, perhaps inevitably, but nevertheless Luongo’s progress during 2015 has been nothing short of phenomenal. The icing on the cake? A barely credible appearance on the Ballon d’Or long list, alongside the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. As breakthrough years go, they don’t get much more comprehensive than Massimo Luongo’s 2015. MH
Blake Austin (NRL)
Being in the frame for State of Origin selection was, he later said himself, the furthest thing from Blake Austin’s mind at the start of the 2015 NRL season. He wasn’t alone in thinking that, or not thinking that as the case may be. For what was the new Canberra recruit but an unremarkable utility player who’d played just 35 games over four seasons for Penrith and the Wests Tigers?
Yet, in a phrase seldom heard, moving to Canberra was the best thing he ever did. With coach Ricky Stuart entrusting him with the five-eighth jersey vacated by the Broncos-bound Anthony Milford, Austin threw himself into pre-season training knowing that, at 24, he wasn’t so young that chances like this would keep coming his way. And after a quiet opening game Austin ran 116m, made two line-breaks and eight tackle busts in his second game against the Warriors.
From that point Austin – sporting a distinctive thatch of goatee (part Viking, part back-country moonshiner) that only added to his unfashionable allure – transformed from a journeyman into a running five-eighth; a dagger with skinny legs, quick feet, and the uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time. Never having been a renowned try-scorer Austin picked up 14 over the course of the season.
As Origin time came around – and after NSW lost Game 1– Austin was the form five-eighth in NSW, a hat-trick of tries in the City-Country fixture underlining that point. The NSW selectors must have been sorely tempted to select him, but when the time came they lost their nerve. Perhaps they couldn’t believe that Austin’s hot form could possibly last. So they went with their default option, Mitchell Pearce. We know how that worked out. Should Austin begin 2016 the way he performed in 2015 – a year in which he was named Dally M five-eighth of the year – they’ll have their chance to make amends. PC
