Day struggles but stays in contention
Jason Day hasn’t exactly disappeared.
His driver, however, is presently playing hide-and-seek.
Just shy of four months ago, Day left TPC Sawgrass as The Players champion, his blend of power and accuracy with his driver the ultimate weapon in golf. It was his third victory of 2016 and the seventh in 17 starts.
Back then he was hitting nearly 60% of the fairways with his driver and solidly entrenched at the top of the official world golf rankings. Since then, however, he’s winless in eight events, with his oncetrusted driver causing him fits.
He hit just 31% of the fairways in the RBC Canadian Open, 35% of the fairways in The Barclays and 37.5% in the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational. He maxed out at 46% in the British Open at Royal Troon and didn’t surpass 53% in any of his other three starts.
He’s maintained his No. 1 status in large part because of one of the game’s best putters and iron play. Although he’s racked up four top-10 finishes since The Players, including a second in the PGA and a tie for third in the Bridgestone, he isn’t the Day who awed his peers earlier this year.
Before he began defense of his title in the BMW Championship at Crooked Stick Golf Club, Day was testing new drivers ahead of his pro-am.
“The only thing that I’m not doing that great from The Players Championship to now is that I’m just probably missing a few more fairways,” said Day, who after his five-win season last year has three wins and seven top-fives and is second in the FedExCup standings heading into this week’s third leg of the postseason.
“Now I felt like I started feeling a little bit better with how I was going about things on the golf course last week, so if I could hit a few more fairways this week, that would be great. I feel like every time I hit a fairway I have got a good chance at making a birdie.”
After a pause, Day continued with a smile.
“I feel like I’m getting really good out of the rough now since I’ve been hitting it in there the whole time, so hopefully that’s not going to be an issue this week and I can hit it from the short stuff.”
Acknowledging he’s been a tad frustrated with not adding hardware to his collection since The Players, he’s not deviating from his overall game plan.
“I gave a short little stint there where I made winning look a little, probably look a little easier than what it should have, and obviously I want to get back to that. But once again, you have to keep up a level of workload that I had in the past to maintain that level. During this season when it gets hectic, it’s tough to sit back, take the nice rest that you need, plan the week out practice-wise, work on the weaknesses while maintaining the strengths and then also stay game ready, it’s very difficult to do that in a week. But hopefully I can change that this week by winning.”
He’ll have to do so on a course he saw for the first time Wednesday. Last year he won the BMW Championship at Conway Farms, north of Chicago.
“I’ve got to make sure I focus on getting the right game plan in place to try and tackle this golf course, which I know is a very difficult task to do,” Day said.
Especially with the current state of his driver.