With mother’s recovery going well, Day in good mental spot
Dening Day is a sweet, stubborn Filipino who is closing in on her 60th birthday yet refuses to yield to Father Time.
As resilient as she is tough, she’s 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 lasted five hours and 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 chemotherapy, another uplifting moment after weeks of anguish.
“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 troublesome back that forced him to seek rehabilitation for the rest of the year. 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. If he was looking at a flag, he was thinking about his mom. Full commitment was blurred.
But with the good news concerning his mom, he has been in serious prep mode for his favorite week of the year, starting with 18 holes at Augusta on Friday. The bounce has returned to his step. His swing feels amazing, he said.
He said he has more touch in his hands for the short game. Things are coming along. And he’s smiling again. While he said he is a little unprepared because of time lost, he’s in a much better place than he was the day before his mom’s surgery.
“I can start focusing on golf a lot more,” he said. “I’m kind of back into the rebuilding stage, and it’s weird for a person in my position to say that. It has been a while since I’ve won, and it has been a while since I’ve actually thought about golf because of what has gone on.
“So right now I’m in the process of actually trying to just do my work. Try and get better each and every week, each and every day, and hopefully the ultimate goal is to make sure that I fit the pieces of the puzzle together.
“This week I’m going to just do the best job I can with what I’ve got.”