SPECIAL DAY
Mother’s sacrifice brought Jason opportunity to achieve golf dreams
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Mother’s Day, indeed. They celebrate the holiday in Australia just like we do in America. Unfortunately for Jason Day, he won’t be able to spend Mother’s Day on Sunday with his “mum,’’ as he calls Adenil “Dening” Day.
He’ll be trying to win the Players Championship as he competes in the final round on the TPC Sawgass Stadium Course, where he’s seven shots off the lead after shooting 73 Saturday.
Day’s mother departed for home in Brisbane, Australia, last month after spending the better part of the previous three months with Day at his home in Columbus, Ohio, while recovering from lung cancer surgery.
Day, the former top-ranked player in the world and current No. 3, implored his 60-year-old mother to stay in the States, stay in Ohio near him, where he can look after her the way she looked after him when he was younger.
“I understand why she went home, but it was difficult,’’ Day told The Post. “I said to her, ‘You don’t have to worry about working anymore.’ The retirement age back home is 67, and she’s 60. That’s seven more years of working, which is a pretty long time — especially after you have a benign tumor in your breast six years back and now she’s had lung cancer.’’
Day has $33.7 million in winnings since 2009. That doesn’t include tens of millions more in endorsements from his companies such as Adidas and TaylorMade. If he never makes another nickel, he has enough money to care for his mother, his two sisters, Yanna and Kim, his wife, Ellie, and their two children 20 times over.
“I told my mum, ‘Just relax and enjoy the rest of your life. Come live with me,’ ’’ Day said. “She didn’t want to do that. She wants to stand on her own two feet. I could see the benefit of her going back home and getting stuck back into work mentally and physically, resuming her normal life. Once you go from working so hard to doing nothing, it kind of deteriorates you.’’
Dening Day, who works as an administrative assistant at an import-export company, is a stubborn fighter who survived physical and emotional abuse from her late husband. She obviously is not the deteriorating type.
Without Dening Day, you see, there is no Jason Day as we know him today. There are no tens of millions of dollars in the bank, no 10 PGA Tour wins, including the 2015 PGA Championship.
She not only gave Jason she saved his life.
There surely are many mothers of PGA Tour players competing at TPC Sawgrass on Sunday deserving of kudos and credit for the things they’ve done for their sons, but none may be more deserving of salutation than Dening, whose sacrifices when Jason was a teenager are remarkable.
Dening, who grew up poor in the Philippines and was a mailorder bride whom Jason’s physically-abusive, alcoholic father, Alvyn, brought to Australia, set a chain reaction of events in motion that allowed Jason to pursue his golf dreams and make an unimaginably good life for himself.
Jason once revealed of his father’s abuse, “Dad tried to drive me with the driver. Nothing was ever good enough, even winning.”
After Alvyn Day died when Jason was 12, Jason tumbled into a derelict life of drinking and trouble-making, and Dening desperately tried to change his path. She did so by selling the family home so she could afford to send Jason to Kooralbyn, a golf academy, where he could find some discipline and direction.
It was there where Jason met Colin Swatton, his golf instructor, and his life changed forever. Swatton, who became a father figure and confidant to Jason, caddies for him now.
Asked if, at the time, he had any idea just how deep the sacrifice his mother made when she sold the house so she could send him to Kooralbyn, Jason said, “I didn’t at first, but I did after I had my first fight with Col. It was then when I realized the sacrifice her and my sisters were making.
“I didn’t really understand it until I was walking a par-3 golf course by myself one day after my fight with Col.’’
Jason disrespected Swatton, insisting on playing the par-3 course at the academy instead of working on his short game with the rest of the students.
“I made a fool of myself, played the par-3 in the end, but then came back and apologized,’’ Jason recalled.
That day, early in Jason’s time at the academy, was a turning point. It was when the depth of his mother’s sacrifices sunk in for him and when he began to respect Swatton.
If Dening doesn’t sell her house, Jason never gets to that academy and Swatton never comes into his life.
“If my dad hadn’t have passed away, I would have definitely never met Col,’’ Jason said. “And if I didn’t meet Col, I wouldn’t be here today. It was all due to the fact that my mum sacrificed for me. To have practically nothing after my dad died and for her to gamble on me to have the opportunity of sending me to the golf academy, that’s a pretty big risk.’’
It was a risk that paid more dividends than even the most outlandish dreamers could have imagined.