Jason Day will tee-up in the defence of this PGA Championship finding his public life since his emotional Whistling Straits triumph a ‘balancing act’.
After the bitter disappointment of missing out on the St. Andrews Open Championship play-off by a stroke, Day finally became a Major Champion shooting a 20-under par tally along the shores of Lake Michigan and capture the 2016 PGA Championship by three strokes from overwhelming crowd favourite, Jordan Spieth.
He became the 11th Australian to win a Major and joined David Graham (1979), fellow Queenslander Wayne Grady (1990) and Steve Elkington (1995) to lift the Rodman Wanamaker Trophy.
And in the 12 months since Day’s stunning success he’s gone about stamping his enormous class winning five other tournaments, including the Barclays Championship in his very first event since the PGA Championship success, and more recently the 2016 Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass.
As well, in that 12 month period Day also saw the birth of his second child, Lucy.
Jason Day flagged between a pair of Australian flags but he says it’s been a ‘balancing act’ since winning the PGA Championship a year ago. (Photo – www.golfbytourmiss.com)
But while his PGA Tour career earnings have surpassed $US 33.5m life has not been all plain sailing for the Beaudesert-born Day.
“My life hasn’t changed too much. I guess in regards to the World Ranking, has definitely changed. I think a lot more people know who I am, which is great, and so people want more autographs, they want more time,” he said.
“So there’s more of a balancing act that you have to really go about your actually daily life when you come out on Tour. It’s not too bad when you’re back home, but yeah, it’s changed a little bit but not too much. I’m still the same person as I was before I won a major, but I just need to work harder now.
“Obviously goals and things have changed since winning the major championship, and yeah, I need to kind of re-evaluate things and go from there.”
And while Day’s life has changed for the better there’s also dealing with his own expectations, and revealing how it affects him inside when he doesn’t play as well as he think he should have.
“I always have high expectations of myself and I guess that’s why when I play a round that I don’t play too well, I’m in the back nearly crying myself to sleep,” he admitted.
“I get really, really frustrated when I don’t play good golf. That’s the biggest thing for me is to make sure that I’m always on top of it.
A sweetest of kisses. Jason Day plants a kiss on the Rodman Wanamaker Trophy.
“And yeah, the expectation, I think not only from everyone, but more so yourself; you look at it this way. I was saying that I’ve never been more stressed at being No. 1 in the world. And then Rory came out and said it wasn’t very stressful for him. It just depends on how you take things. You know, people deal with stress differently.
“It’s all in what kind of person you are, and for me, I feel like I get stressed out a little bit more. I think it’s a good thing, because it makes me want to work harder. Make sure that I’m not leaving anything unturned. With that said, I’m here in the position that I am today, because of what I’ve done in the past, because of those expectations. I expected that I should be winning nearly every week, and there I went on a stretch there where I felt like I was winning every week.
“Over the last four tournaments or so, hasn’t turned out the way I wanted to, but I haven’t been able to practice as much as I’d like to just because of the schedule change and all the tournaments kind of jumbled in amongst each other.
“But I get three weeks off coming up and I should be able to get back on top of my game and get back to what I need to do and hopefully finish strong with the FedEx.”
Day will tee-up Thursday still as the current World No. 1 and a position he has enjoyed now since March 27th in capturing the WGC – Dell Match-Play Championship in Austin, Texas.
And with still some four months of 2016 remaining, Day is looking to end the year as the game’s top-ranked star.
“It’s definitely important to me as I really want to obviously finish No. 1 in the world at the end of the year,” he said.
“But I think the biggest thing for me is to really understand what I need to do to win each week or get myself into contention because the hardest part is obviously trying to stay consistent for so many years; it’s very, very difficult. I think the last guy we had was Tiger Woods that was very consistent. Each week that he played, he was pretty much in contention.
“Now granted there’s a few things that needs to go into that. Obviously scheduling is huge, not trying to overdo yourself with scheduling. Making sure you take the proper time off, rest, recover, practice. All these little things come into effect when you’re trying to either obtain or keep the World Ranking, the No. 1 spot in the world.
“And then on top of it, if you can just win. Winning takes care of everything. And if you can do that; I think that’s probably more concerning for me is I just need to feel, even though I’m comfortable with winning, I need to get back to the point where I feel like I go out there and win every single week.
“Currently, like I was just saying earlier with the tournaments and how they are mixed up, I really haven’t had time to practice. Haven’t had any time off. Pretty much week off and straight back into it. Leaving Sunday and you’re back on Tour again.
“It’s important. I really enjoy being up at the top of the World Rankings and I really want to see how far I can take myself in my career to see how long I can hold it there.”
