Jason Day is chasing No. 1 Jordan Spieth, but he didn’t follow him all the way to Abu Dhabi last week, as some of the other top players in the World Golf Rankings did.
Day, No. 2 in the world after being No. 1 twice and for a total of four weeks last year, plays for the second time in 2016 this week when he defends the title he won in a playoff in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines on La Jolla.
After taking three months off following the President’s Cup to stay home with his family as his wife gave birth to their second child, he opened the year with a solid tie for 10th in the Hyundai Tournament of Champions three weeks ago.
“Kind of started the same way last year (when he tied for third at Kapalua),” Day said after finishing on the Plantation Course. “I think overall it’s a pretty solid start after having three months off. To get out here and shoot 15 under was pretty nice. I’m looking forward to getting back at it at Torrey.
“Torrey is a very difficult golf course. Obviously the South Course is tough, but North Course you can kind of take advantage of. So I got to get back to the drawing board, kind of get back onto what needs to happen for me to win that tournament. …
“Keep the progress from last season going through this season.”
Last year in the San Diego-area event, Day started with a 1-over 73 on the South Course, but then he took advantage of the North to the tune of 65 before playing the weekend (when everybody plays the South both days) in 71-70.
That left him in a tie with J.B. Holmes, Harris English and Scott Stallings. Day and Holmes kept going after making birdies on the first playoff hole, and the Aussie won with a par on the second.
That jump-started Day on a career year, as he won five times, including his first major title in the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits and victories in the Barclays and the BMW Championship during the FedEx Cup playoffs.
Had Spieth not been a little more brilliant with five victories of his own, including the Masters, the U.S. Open and the Tour Championship, the Aussie would have been Player of the Year.
“It was a great year,” said Day, who won only twice previously on the PGA Tour. “I can’t say any more about how good the year was, and even to top it off, we had a second child, Lucy. It was kind of big for me to kind of stay with the family, because it’s been written down before, but (wife) Ellie dealt with postpartum depression with (their son) Dash, so I wanted to make sure I was there for Ellie and Dash and Lucy after Lucy was delivered. …
“It was kind of a surprise to me how well I played. I knew that I had the ability to do it, but I didn’t think I could have gone on a run like that, win my first major, get to No. 1 in the world. It all happened very quickly. It was a spark, but I felt like I handled it pretty good.”
That it happened at all is a story in itself.
It appeared Day was headed for a big season in 2014 when the beat Victor Dubuisson of France an epic 23-hole final at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, but he missed the next two months because of a right thumb injury that bothered him for much of the year.
Even though he played well at times in 2014, tying for 20th in his return at the Masters, tying for fourth in the U.S. Open, tying for second in the Barclays and tying for fourth in the Tour Championship, it wasn’t the season it might have been.
And last year at the U.S. Open in June, Day collapsed on the 18th hole in round two at Chambers Bay as he battled vertigo. He gutted it out to tie for ninth, and he had another bout with dizziness as he tied for fourth in the Open Championship at St. Andrews.
Day didn’t tell anyone about the latter incident until after he won four times in six events, starting with the RBC Canadian Open a week after the Open and culminating with the BMW Championship.
“It’s (still) an issue,” said Day, whose first PGA Tour victory came in the 2010 HP Byron Nelson Championship. “I’m seeing the doctor at OSU, at Ohio State University Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who is a fantastic doctor. He’s helping me out big-time with that.
“We did a bunch of tests just in the offseason, like these eye tests and vertigo tests and all that stuff. (The results) seemed to come back pretty good, so we are on for another year and then we’re off.”
Day’s run at the end of last year also was dizzying, but in a good way.
–Story courtesy of The Sports Xchange, TSX Golf Editor Tom LaMarre
