Jason Day rolls into Baltusrol sick, barely prepared for PGA Championship
SPRINGFIELD, N.J. — Most pros spend weeks, months, even years studying major championship courses, assessing every hill and dale, every green and swale, looking for that infinitesimal edge that could pay off with a major championship and immortality.
And then there’s Jason Day, who’s rolling into this week’s PGA Championship at Baltusrol like a senior in the last weeks of high school: late, sick and just barely prepared.
“I haven’t played a practice round,” Day said Wednesday morning. “I haven’t seen the course. I don’t know what it looks like.”
That … that seems problematic.
In the midst of a rigorous schedule that includes three tournaments, two of them majors, in three different countries across just three weeks, Day is running on fumes. It’s far from ideal when you’re in the running for a critical major, the last one for seven months.
Before Wednesday, the sum total of Day’s preparation for Baltusrol was the 30 minutes he spent with club pro Doug Steffen at Tuesday’s Champions’ Dinner. Steffen knows Baltusrol, and gave Day a rundown of every hole, but he doesn’t know Day’s exact game, so the advice will admittedly have its limits.
“The biggest thing is to really manage my ego in that way,” Day said. “Sometimes pull back, or when I do feel comfortable, be able to attack it, but know that there’s consequence and know exactly where I need to miss it.”
As if trying to manage a totally unfamiliar course wasn’t enough to handle, Day’s also carrying a truckload of external baggage this week, starting with the Wanamaker Trophy. He’s the defending champion, which warrants a bevy of media and PGA obligations. Everyone wants a tiny piece of the world No. 1, one of the most accommodating players in the game, and those tiny pieces add up fast.
Day notes that he tries “to stay focused and be nice and do all the things you can do for media, fans, and people, but also making sure that you’re kind of selfish.” The idea being, of course, “I did X to get to No. 1 in the world, I did X to win these tournaments. I need to keep doing that. If I don’t do that, then obviously I’m not going to get those results.”
Plus, stop us if you’ve heard this one before: Jason Day is sick. Shocking, yes. Day took Monday and Tuesday off, but didn’t get a whole lot of rest; he picked up a cold from son Dash, and had to make an emergency trip to the hospital when his wife Ellie suffered an allergic reaction on Tuesday night. Tremendous, right? Perhaps it was the lack of sleep — Day didn’t get to bed until after 2 a.m. — but Day let a bit of honesty, unusual for victory-or-death athletes, slip into the end of his interview.
“With the limited, limited prep that I’ve had this week, I’m not coming into this week expecting a lot,” he said, and then course-corrected. “I mean, obviously I’m expecting to win, but, like, I’m not really going, ‘All right, you need to go out and force things straightaway.’ ”
Day spent Wednesday in an unusually intensive practice round, forgoing his usual autographs and fan-friendliness and laser-focusing on every one of the 18 holes rather than knocking off early. He noted, for instance, the way that the mountain that overlooks Baltusrol (it’s a little hill, but that qualifies for “mountain” status in Jersey) affects every putt; according to local knowledge, every green breaks away from the mountain. It’s a good tip, but the question now is whether it’ll be enough to help Day repeat as PGA champion.
Day’s quest begins with a couple playing partners who know a thing or two about winning: Rory McIlroy, who holds two PGA Championships, and Phil Mickelson, who won at Baltusrol the last time the PGA came this way. The trio tees off at 8:30 a.m. ET Thursday, whether Day’s ready or not.
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports and the author of EARNHARDT NATION, on sale now at Amazon or wherever books are sold. Contact him at [email protected] or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.
