A few days spent pottering about the island delights of Lewis and Harris recently confirmed one thing: the humble sheep possesses a far more daring sense of intrepid adventure than this correspondent ever will.

Why settle for the abundant lush grasses of the safe, sprawling terrain on ground level, for instance, when you can trot your shoogling, woolly self onto a treacherous, rocky precipice high above the flock and chomp, baa and meh your way through various clumps of perilously positioned vegetation while maintaining the kind of reckless nonchalance to danger that would have had Evel Knievel peering up and gasping ‘nope, I can’t watch’.

For a man like myself, whose idea of dicey, extreme endeavour is straddling a barbed-wire fence on a skitey stile, the sight of our quadrupedal ruminant friends risking cloven hoof in the pursuit of cud-chewing excellence is an inspiration to us all. If you want something badly enough, you go out and get it.

Jason Day’s journey towards golf’s ultimate rewards has been peppered with pitfalls but the popular Australian has finally joined the herd of major champions. “From getting into fights at home and getting drunk at 12 and not heading in the right direction to a major champion,” reflected Day of this tough, turbulent voyage which saw him lose his father at an early age as well as eight members of his family in a devastating typhoon two years ago while suffering a debilitating bout of vertigo as recently as June.

His record-breaking victory in the US PGA Championship at Whistling Straits provided a fitting end to what has been a compelling year in golf’s biggest championships and prompted an outpouring of tears from Day that could have doubled the water levels of Lake Michigan. It’s just a shame we have to wait eight months for the next major to come round.

At the top of the professional tree, golf is being cradled by some very impressive, inspiring hands. In Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and Day, the world’s one, two and three are all likeable, engaging, honest, open and supremely talented 20-somethings who play in the true spirit of this Royal & Ancient pursuit and display a genuine and publicly expressed mutual respect for each other. It’s a little bit of a difference from the days of Tiger’s tyranny yet this is the bright new era that the Tiger inspired. With Brooke Henderson becoming the latest teenager to win on the LPGA Tour at the weekend, who said golf was all stuffy and old fashioned? Using the phrase ‘role models’ can often be trite, sweeping and an additional burden to bear in a fickle, unforgiving sporting age where every athlete’s move is microscopically analysed like objects in a petri dish, but golf, a game that relies on star power, could not ask for a better star-studded trio to be at its vanguard than Spieth, McIlroy and Day.

With a fine, robust display of front-running golf during the final round, Day has now thrust himself into this exciting trinity. Genuine rags to riches tales in golf don’t come around too often but Day’s humble origins have instilled him with a desire and a devotion to the cause. The relationship with his long-term coach, caddie and mentor Colin Swatton, who took a troubled youngster under his wing all those years ago and steered him on to the right path with a disciplined regime, has shaped the Day character as much as that lack of lavish trimmings.

“We were poor and I remember watching my mom cut the lawn with a knife because we couldn't afford to fix the lawn mower,” reflected the 27-year-old, who has now amassed career earnings of over $20 million. “I remember not having a hot water tank, so we had to use a kettle for hot showers. We would put the kettle on and go have a shower, and then my mom would come and bring three or four kettles in, just to heat them up.”

If the key to winning majors is having tasted the bitter disappointment of coming up short, then Day had plenty of past experience to draw on. He had six top-four finishes in a variety of the big four contests since 2011 but victory had eluded him in a number of ways. The dreaded tag that gets passed about – ‘the best player never to have won a major’ – was beginning to hover over him and the suggestion that there was perhaps too much mental scarring to overcome began to be muttered and mumbled. Not by Day, mind you. Prior to the US PGA Championship, Day had assured all and sundry that these near misses and close calls were all part of a positive development towards the ultimate breakthrough. On Sunday, the proof of those words was in the pudding. In these golfing times of bountiful opportunity, potential rivalries and intriguing prospects about what the future could hold, a bright new Day has dawned. The question has now moved from when he will win a major to how many he will win?