DAY GOES SLEEPLESS NEXT YEAR

JThe Associated Press ASON DAY wants to get back to No. 1 in the world, and he’s willing to lose sleep over it.

“There has to be some kind of sacrifice,” Day said in the Bahamas before shutting it down for the year. “I was reading the Kobe Bryant book, and he knew there was something he had to sacrifice, so he sacrificed sleep. Because he couldn’t sacrifice family, he couldn’t sacrifice competing, and not working. “What can I sacrifice?” he added with a smile. “Sleep.” Day knows the cost of being the best golfer on the planet because he already reached that summit.

He first reached No. 1 in the fall of 2015 after winning five times that year, including his first major at the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) Championship. The following spring, he won three more tournaments in a span of six starts, capped by a wire-to-wire victory in The Players Championship that gave him the highest points average in the world ranking since Tiger Woods. He stayed No. 1 for 47 weeks and looked to be the dominant player he always wanted to be.

Getting back might be even tougher.

The 31-year-old Australian thought he was on the right track when he started the year by winning in a playoff at Torrey Pines, his first victory in more than 18 months. He talked that day about how his victory at Torrey in 2015 propelled him to his best season.

“I’m hoping to do much of the same this year,” Day said.

He won again in early May, hitting a towering 7-iron that bounced off the pin on the treacherous par-three 17th at Quail Hollow that sent him to a two-shot victory in the Wells Fargo Championship.

The end of the year brought a sobering reality: Day started at No. 13 in the world, won twice and finished at No. 14.

“I wasn’t as consistent as I should have been,” Day said. “If you have a couple of wins, finish with around 10 to 12 top 10s, typically you’re in the top-5 region. That’s why I was disappointed about this year, even though I had two wins.”

There’s one other part of the equation.

Along with adding two PGA Tour victories, he and wife Ellie added a third child. A son, Arrow, was born in November.

Dash was three when he ran onto the green at Whistling Straits in 2015 after his father won the PGA Championship, and Ellie was six months pregnant with Lucy. The family is growing, and Day invariably has felt a tug.

He has talked about his constant battle with desire and motivation, and now there is another challenge.

“It takes desire, but it takes balance in life,” Day said. “Right now, I’m at a different stage in my life just having my third child. It’s hard. Tiger made it look so easy over the years. Being No. 1 for 13 years is very impressive, but to be able to be a dominant player, that’s the biggest thing. I wanted to be one of those guys.”

Winning takes care of everything. Woods used to talk baCK in THE CroWD

KEEGAN BRADLEY ended more than six years without a PGA Tour victory at the BMW Championship, and there were plenty of low points along the way.

The biggest was not being invited to dinner for prospective Ryder Cup players in late February.

Sure, it hurt to be left off the last four US teams in the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup. He had to go through US Open qualifying the last two years

(made it both times), and it really stunk to be home the first full week in

April instead

of playing in the Masters in each of the last two years.

But there was one moment when it hit him just how far he had fallen.

“There was a point as early as last year, even two years ago, I was involved in some of the Ryder Cup meetings. I was invited,” Bradley said. “This past year at one of the tournaments, I heard a couple guys talking and I realized I wasn’t even invited—nor did I deserve to be. It was like, ‘Wow. I’ve come pretty far there.’ Now I’m not in the conversation. Those times hurt.”