Australia’s Adam Scott has praised countryman Jason Day for a decision to contest this week’s World Cup of Golf after Day lost family members killed in Typhoon Haiyan.

Day has returned from his US residence to team with Scott despite losing his grandmother, an uncle and six young cousins in the typhoon that recently struck the Philippines.

Government sources believe more than 3,000 people were killed in the storms that ravaged the country’s eastern shoreline while the United Nations Disaster Relief predicts three million people have been displaced following the natural disaster.

While Day’s father is an Australian, his mother was born in the Philippines.

Day revealed his mother learnt of her own mother’s death on the social media site Facebook.

“Everyone by now has seen what is going on in the Philippines as it’s very devastating and sad to see what has gone on following the typhoon”, said Day.

“I know there the aid is now in full swing but it’s just that in certain parts of the country it’s hard to communicate with and I know my own mum found out about she lost her mother on Facebook through communication with our cousins.

“Obviously, it is not the way you want to find out you lost someone you loved so much, so I am definitely looking forward to seeing my mum at the end of this week and just to give her a hug because I know she’s gone through some hard times.

“So what I really want to do this week is really focus on the golf as it is a big week for Melbourne, for Australian golf and for Adam and myself.

“But in saying that my heart goes out to everyone who has lost someone they’ve loved who lived over there in the Philippines, and we are actually still trying to look for some more relatives over there.

“It’s just a tough situation right now and we really hope everything kind of gets going in the direction everyone over there wants it to go.

“Everyone I have talked to has said a prayer for me and my family and I am trying to do the same for everyone else.”

Strangely, Scott will again tee up on Royal Melbourne less than a week after he successfully retained his Australian Masters title on the same course last Sunday.

And after competing in this week’s World Cup of Golf, the current World No. 2 and reigning Augusta Masters champion, will head north to Sydney looking to again win the Australian Open.

If successful, Scott would become only the second player in the history of Australian golf to win Australian golfing grand slam in the same season – Australian PGA Championship, Australian Masters and Australian Open titles.

However on the eve of this week’s $US8m event Scott praised his fellow Queensland-born colleague in electing to compete in Melbourne.

“I am excited to play with Jason here in Melbourne and it’s just great the top two Australians are here representing our country this week,” said Scott.

“I’ve been here for a couple of weeks and the way golf has gone for the last couple of weeks has been such a positive so every credit to Jason for sticking around this week and wanting to play as he understands how important it is for everyone down here, as everyone will be excited to see him competing.”

Twenty-six nations will be represented this week including the Philippines represented by the duo of Angelo Que and Tony Lascuna.

Que is competing for his country for a third occasion and Lascuna a second.

Fortunately the pair lost no family members or friends in the disaster.

“It has been pretty tough, you know, especially after what happened in the past two weeks but fortunately none of our family members were affected, although my in-laws were pretty close to the affected areas, but, you know, they are okay,” said Que.

“We were pretty worried because we were in India when that happened.  But everybody has been doing their part.  Even when we had an event last week in Manilla Liang Wen-Chong, when he won, he donated half of his earnings to the Red Cross for the victims of Typhoon Haiyan.

“And all the players, have donated their share, and agents have done the same thing and also the sponsors.  Everybody has been great so it has been a great help and support.”

In fact, Dr. Harushisa Handa, Chairman of ISPS and sponsors of this week’s tournament revealed at the official welcome on Tuesday evening his company has donated $100,000 to the Philippine relief cause.