USA TODAY International Edition
With mom healing, Day in good spot
Golfer was shaken by cancer battle
AUGUSTA, GA. Dening Day is a sweet, stubborn Filipino who is closing in on her 60th birthday yet refuses to yield to Father Time.
She’s also a 4- 11 proud woman of few words. So few that even when she regularly coughed up blood for three months last year she didn’t bother to tell anyone, including her son, Jason Day, the third- ranked player in the world and a winner of 10 PGA Tour titles, including one major.
Eventually she was diagnosed with lung cancer, and her son, having to talk his mother into making the trip, flew her from Australia to Ohio. On March 24, she had successful surgery at James Cancer Hospital at Ohio State that removed a quarter of her left lung.
“Before surgery and after surgery, she wants to get home so she could get back to work,” Day said on a sun- drenched Tuesday at Augusta National Golf Club. “I’m like, ‘ What are you thinking?’ … We’re very, very pleased to be able to get through this stage, and hopefully she can live a very long life.
“It was emotional, but everyone is blessed and happy, and we’re thankful that the Big Man upstairs helped out.”
As his mother continues her recovery near his home in Ohio, Day is the one who has gone back to work. Two weeks ago he left the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play in tears, forced to withdraw when the weight of his worries overwhelmed him.
But with his mom doing much better, Day, 29, headed to Augusta for the Masters, arriving Friday and looking more upbeat than he has for some time. Monday, he learned that his mother, the woman he says he owes everything to, doesn’t need chemo.
“I feel kind of a lot lighter in a sense that my mind is not weighing very much heavily on the situation that my mom was going through,” he said. “So to be able to have that happen and then be able to come here and get my mind off things is quite nice. … She’s never been here before. Hopefully she’s healthy enough to fly down. But it’s great to even think about it. It gets me excited thinking about the possibility of actually winning and obviously accomplishing one of my life goals. With that said, I can’t get too far ahead of myself because, yeah, it’s only Tuesday, and Sunday is a very, very long way away.”
Day’s best golf hasn’t been seen in a long time. His last of three victories in 2016 came in The Players Championship in May. He withdrew from his last two events in 2016 because of a trou- blesome back that forced him to seek rehabilitation. He has made only six starts this year.
With his back at times aching this year and his mother ailing, Day said, his mind often wandered from the matter at hand.
But with the good news concerning his mom, he has been in serious prep mode for the Masters. Said Day: “This week I’m going to just do the best job I can with what I’ve got.”