Refusing to moan, Jason Day is vowing to "get this done" and secure his overdue maiden major at golf's spiritual home.
Day and former world No.1 Adam Scott are leading Australia's strongest collective push for British Open glory in a decade after completing the painstaking second round just three shots behind American halfway leader Dustin Johnson.
Day held his nerve after successive bogeys between two contentious suspensions of play to eke out a second-round 71 at waterlogged and windswept St Andrews to join Scott (67) at seven under par for the championship.
The star duo are in a six-way tie for fourth spot, with Geoff Ogilvy (68) and Steven Bowditch (69) within striking distance at five-under and among 10 Australians to make the halfway cut.
Scott is the sentimental favourite after going agonisingly close for the past three years, most painfully in 2012 at Royal Lytham.
But Day has been knocking on the door ever since boldly making the cut on his major debut at St Andrews back in 2010 and few would deny the 27-year-old former world junior No.1 his big moment on golf's greatest stage.
After heroically finishing ninth at last month's US Open despite his dramatic battle with vertigo, the three-time major runner-up wasn't about to let a 10-and-a-half-hour stoppage on Saturday cruel his latest shot at a life-changing breakthrough.
"I really want to win a major so bad that I just can't afford to let it frustrate me," Day said.
"I've just got to keep moving forward and take it hole by hole and get this done.
"I'm not going to stop fighting until it's over. Overall I'm very pleased with how this has panned out thus far.
The extreme winds, gusting up to 65km/ph - after a three-hour rain delay on Friday - forced R & A officials to make the momentous decision to finish the Open on a Monday for only the second time in more than a century.
Day, who won last year's gruelling world matchplay championship while also suffering with illness, admitted he'd have preferred a 36-hole Sunday finish.
"I would have been happy with it, but the decision is in and I'm happy with 18-18," the 27-year-old said.
"But 36 was good. I feel like I'm a young, fit bloke and I can power on, but either is fine with me."
Fellow Australians Matt Jones (73) and Greg Chalmers (72) are at three-under and not out of it, sitting seven shots adrift of the lead.
Brett Rumford is two-under after successive 71s, Marcus Fraser (69) and Marc Leishman (73) are both one-under, while John Senden (72) and Scott Arnold (71) also made the cut right on the even-par number.
Arnold, the 29-year-old world No.631, was particularly impressive.
The New South Welshman reeled off four straight birdies on the back nine in Saturday's torrid conditions to memorably survive the cut on his major championship debut.
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