DAY HEEDS WOODS’ ADVICE
Slumping golfer looks to get back mental toughness
“I’ve always said it; once I improve the mental game for myself, this is the last piece of the puzzle for me, I believe.” Golfer Jason Day
DORAL, FLA. Jason Day has seen better days.
After dominating golf late last summer and into the fall, when he won four times including his first major and ascended to the top of the world golf rankings for the first time, his start to 2016 has been anything but Day-like.
He tied for 10th in the Hyundai Tournament of Champions, missed the cut in the Farmers Insurance Open when he was sick and tied for 11th in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
Off the course, he and wife Ellie welcomed their second child into the world, daughter Lucy, in November. A month later, however, 6-8, 250-pound LeBron James barreled over Ellie when the Days were sitting courtside. She was taken to the hospital as a precautionary measure and quickly rebounded.
While Day is still No. 2 in the world and he’s loving life at home, he’s a tad lost right now on the golf course. And if history holds, he won’t get his mojo back this week on the TPC Blue Monster at Trump National Doral during the World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship. In four starts here, his best finish is a tie for 20th and he tied for 31st last year.
“But I’m not panicking,” said Day, who touched a club only once late last year while taking a three-month break from golf.
But Day did make a phone call to someone he trusts to help him get out of his funk. An old friend full of wisdom and experience. A guy by the name of Tiger Woods, who is recuperating at his Florida home after his third surgery to his back in the last 23 months.
“We were on the phone for about 50 minutes, which is a long time,” Day said.
While the two did talk about TPC Blue Monster, where Woods won the Ford Championship in 2005 and 2006 and the WGCCadillac Championship in 2007 and 2013, the majority of the call dealt with Day’s brain.
“If you’re going to pick a guy’s brain, he’s the guy,” Day said. “I’m slowly changing the way my body looks with regards to obviously the outer shell right now, but the inner stuff, like my core, and everything else is coming along nicely. I’m eating the right stuff, and I’m practicing very, very hard.
“From there, the last piece, the biggest piece for me is to not get in my way. I think once I learn to control my mind ... it’s going to be a lot easier for me to go out there and play golf instead of fighting myself.”
As has been the case many times before when the two have conversed, Woods stressed the mental side of the game.
The mind-set leading into a tournament and then after hitting the first tee shot, for instance. Mental toughness. How to mentally get over not liking a golf course. Killer instinct. At his best — and it was for a long time — Woods had the best mind in the game, Day said.
“I’ve always said it; once I improve the mental game for myself, this is the last piece of the puzzle for me, I believe, and I think I’ll be able to go out there and just kind of kill it,” Day said.
Day had that killer instinct last year when he won four events in his last nine starts and tied for fourth in the British Open and tied for ninth in the U.S. Open.
“That’s that killer instinct that I need to get back, like I had at the second half of last year,” Day said. “Right now, it’s down there, but it just hasn’t come out yet.
“Once it does, I’m hoping that I can replicate the second half of last year.
“But it’s amazing to be able to talk to someone that’s done it for so long, because he did it for 14, 15 years of just absolutely dominating and killing it.”