Day bouncing back after mum has cancer op
FORMER world No 1 Jason Day said he is in a ‘ much better place’ after his mother had surgery in her battle against lung cancer.
Day broke down in tears after withdrawing from the WGC-Dell technologies Match play a fortnight ago, saying he had found it impossible to focus on golf and had pulled out of the event to be with his mother Dening, who had an operation two days later to remove a three-to-four-centimetre mass in her lungs.
World No 3 Day, 29, told the Golf Channel: ‘I now feel happier to be on the course and I’m enjoying myself out here a lot more than I was in the last month or two. there’s been a lot of things going on this year that have been distracting to my golf.
‘My mind was so far away from golf that I was hitting shots on the course and I’m like, “What am I doing?” It would be a wedge from 140 yards but I’d be 20 yards out. I’m coming into this week focused a lot better.’ Day played nine holes yesterday alongside 1988 Masters champion Sandy Lyle and Japan’s Yuta Ikeda before being forced off by a storm.
Tornado warning
THE first day of practice for the Masters was heavily disrupted yesterday when the estimated 75,000 spectators were first evacuated from the course owing to a severe storm and then, having been let back in, asked to leave once more owing to a tornado warning. A more typical spring day of warm sunshine is expected today but the Par 3 tournament will almost certainly be punctuated by heavy showers tomorrow. The first day of the tournament on Thursday is predicted to be a windy one but the good news is that everything is looking set for a sunny weekend.