The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Day hopes caddie change lifts pressure of title bid
Australian aims to have more fun at Augusta after replacing coach on the bag
Jason Day is not exaggerating when he refers to his coach Colin Swatton as a “father figure,” but the Australian believes ending their player-caddie relationship could help him win the Masters.
Swatton was the golf instructor at the Kooralbyn International School in Queensland when Day, aged 12, arrived shortly after his father’s death.
He went on to become Day’s coach and caddie and helped him win the 2015 US PGA and reach number one in the world, but after a winless 2017 Day decided to make a change and hired his friend Luke Reardon instead.
Reardon has since encountered visa problems, but Day turned to another friend, Rika Batibasaga, and the pair won their first event together, the Farmers Insurance Open, in January.
“Col was great for the 10 years that we had and he is still my coach. He’s here,” Day told his pre-tournament press conference at Augusta National.
“But to a certain degree I think when you have your coach on the bag, you kind of think, ‘Well, he’s going to say something about this shot after the round, so I better not play that shot’.
“I think that it always comes down to the line of me trying a shot on the last hole to win the Masters and (if) it ends up failing, I would much rather fail in front of millions instead of failing in front of nobody. And if I can pull it off, then great.
“Having Rika on the bag this week I think hopefully will make things a little bit more light out there for me and a little bit more fun, because over the last few years it’s been more of a grind trying to get that win because a lot of people have come up to me and said, ‘This is your year, this is your year, you’re going to win one’.
“And that can add a little bit more pressure. So hopefully I have my good close buddy out there with me and we can make things a little less stressful and go out there and have fun.”
Bubba Watson, meanwhile, is hoping less is more as he attempts to join some of the greats of the game who have won three or more Masters titles.
Watson, who defeated Louis Oosthuizen in a play-off in 2012 and won by three shots from Jordan Spieth and Jonas Blixt two years later, is among the favourites for the year’s first major after arresting his slide down the world rankings with two wins this season.
But the unorthodox left-hander will not be spending hours on the course or practice ground before play gets under way on Thursday, despite having the chance to join the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Tiger Woods and Gary Player in the history books.
“The difference this time around is energy,” Watson said. “I asked a few people, older gentlemen in our golfing lives, ‘What do you need to work on and how do you recover from a stressful day?’, because mentally, physically you’re going to be exhausted.
“So the change in preparation is less golf, not playing 18 holes. I’ve played Augusta (enough times) now, I can sit back and only play nine holes a day. And that’s what I did today. I played nine holes and I hit some balls and putted.
“That’s the difference in the strategy and that’s what I did different from the two times that I won here. I’m looking for nine holes tomorrow and then the only golf I’ll play on Wednesday will be the par-three (contest).”
One of the “older gentlemen” Watson took advice from was 47-year-old Phil Mickelson, who won his first title since the 2013 Open earlier this season and is seeking to surpass Nicklaus as the oldest Masters champion.
Mickelson is just one of a host of star players in good form and Watson added: “There’s so many people that are playing well right now. We’ve got to be on top of our game to force the Sunday charge to put on a green jacket.”