Millennial Movement

It didn’t seem to matter that he collapsed to the ground in the second round with a bout of vertigo. Or that he spent most of the next day uneasy on his feet, careful to not look up or down too quickly for fear of more dizziness. Jason Day had the 54-hole lead at Chambers Bay and could have won the 115th U.S. Open.

Day didn’t, of course. Jordan Spieth did, his second major title in a row. But, shortly thereafter, Day had the rest of the PGA Tour wobbling and unsteady as his game reached a dizzying level.

Since winning the Canadian Open in late July, Day has won seven of his past 18 starts, including the PGA Championship, two FedEx Cup playoff events, the World Golf Championship match play and, most recently, the Players Championship. He has risen to No. 1 in the world, a ranking he has held for the past 15 weeks, and shows little sign of abdicating his position.

“Being on top is just as hard because you have to work harder than what you did climbing that mountain to stay on top,” Day said. “Then, everyone is expecting you each week to compete and play well and win. And sometimes that can be stressful.”

Day comes to Oakmont Country Club — the course where his agent, Bud Martin, is a member — looking stress-free. With three victories already under his belt in 2016 and his game seemingly firing on all cylinders, he has the look of a player who isn’t about to wobble and stumble this time at the U.S. Open.

Spieth, who has won twice in 2016, is the defending champ and has already bounced back from his one-hole malfunction at the Masters. And Rory McIlroy, the No. 3 player in the world, won his native Irish Open a couple of weeks ago with a pair of fairway-metal shots on the final three holes that gave the world yet another glimpse of his awesome talent.

But Day is just as hot, if not impressively incendiary. And that should set the table for a must-see showdown of the top three players in the world.

“Unfortunately, we’re not going to be on top all the time,” Day said last week before the start of the Memorial in Dublin, Ohio. “We’re going to have bad tournaments here and there. It’s a lot of pressure to be in this situation we’re in. But we wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Day, Spieth and McIlroy have combined to win 71 percent (five) of the past seven majors, a percentage that would have increased significantly if Spieth hadn’t blown a five-shot lead on the final nine holes at Augusta National. Or if both Spieth and Day hadn’t missed a British Open playoff by a single shot.

But even McIlroy, a four-time major champion, was quick to quell all the talk of the Big Three.

“I think it really does the other players an injustice because the fields are so deep out here and there’s so many other great young players,” McIlroy said. “Just to focus on us three, OK, we’re at the top of the rankings and we’ve won a few majors between us, but I think it’s just unfair to focus on us.”

McIlroy pointed to players such as Rickie Fowler, Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Hideki Matsuyama, Justin Thomas and Brooks Koepka as being capable of winning their first major championship at Oakmont. Johnson has been close to winning several major titles, no failure more agonizing than what happened last year at Chambers Bay when he missed a 3-foot putt that would have forced a Monday playoff with Spieth.

Then there is Bubba Watson, a two-time Masters champion, who finished fifth when the U.S. Open was at Oakmont in 2007. And England’s Danny Willett, who won the Masters in April when Spieth slipped. And don’t forget other past major champions who are in their 30s — Adam Scott, a two-time winner in 2016; Justin Rose, the 2013 U.S. Open winner at Merion, a course similar to Oakmont in playability; and two-time major champion Zach Johnson, who won the British Open in July.

“We’re the top three at the minute,” said McIlroy, who once spent 95 weeks ranked as the No. 1 player in the world.

“Obviously, we’re working to keep it that way and try to be No. 1. But, at the same time, there are a lot of guys just behind us — if we slip, they want to take that place.”

Fowler, the No. 5 player in the world, is generally included in the group of players lurking right behind. But he has missed the cut in his past two starts — the Players Championship, where he was the defending champ; and the Memorial. Like Spieth, Day and McIlroy, Fowler will be making his first appearance at Oakmont.

“The bunkering is very tough and penalizing around here,” Fowler said after playing two practice rounds at Oakmont a couple of weeks ago. “Staying out of those and driving the ball well here is a premium. I heard the greens had a lot of movement and lot of slope, which is very true. I definitely like old-school golf courses and that is old-school. But it’s still big enough that it has plenty of length so it’s not going to get overpowered.”

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The big three

Over the past two seasons, no one in golf has consistently played at a higher level than Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth and Jason Day. The Big Three have risen to the top of the world rankings while collecting a treasure trove of tournament hardware. Between the three young superstars, they have 20 victories, including wins in three of the past five major tournaments. Here’s a look at how each player has fared in every contest they’ve entered since the 2015 season:

Black: Rory McIlroy | Blue: Jordan Spieth | Green: Jason Day

Gerry Dulac: gdulac@post-gazette.com and Twitter @gerrydulac