Jason Day made a pretty bold declaration prior to the just-completed Australian Open In Sydney.
Perhaps calling it bold is a bit of an understatement. Jason Day went totally overboard, considering his winless 2017.
Coming into his home county’s Open, Day was the big draw along with Jordan Spieth, who had been vacationing back in Dallas. No, this was J-Day’s event, a field was plopped in front of him that he should have been able to overpower, at least the Jason Day who used to be No. 1 might have.
But this Jason Day has fallen to No. 12 in the world, making his pre-tournament thoughts a bit more head-scratching.
Here’s what Day had to say before things got underway:
“I want to do more than just get back to No.1, I want to get back to No.1 and stay there for a long time. You look at Greg Norman for instance. He got back there and re-energized himself, motivated himself to get back to work and he stayed there for 331 weeks. That’s what people remember the most of how dominant [he was]. People know that guy was No.1 for 331 weeks, that’s legendary stuff. That’s what I want to be able to do. I want to get back there and know at some point in my era or my career that I dominated over time. I’m not so much worried about getting back there, I need to focus on getting back there and dominating.”
Geez Jason, how about a simple:
“Great to be here, I’d really like to win this championship in my home country” or something to that effect.
But no, J-Day belted out some confusing dialog.
First, someone needs to tell J-Day that the way things are going, no one’s going to “dominate” in today’s game with the amount of talent packed up there at the top.
Does anyone for one second think that Jason Day is going to “dominate” with guys like Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Hideki Matsuyama, Justin Rose and Rory McIlroy hanging around?
Dominate?
You’d think J-Day would at least win the Aussie Open.
If he wants to “dominate” it might have at least given him a starting point.
He held the third round lead and it wasn’t asking a whole lot for him to close the deal.
Not only did Day not win, he was beaten by a guy who lost his card on the MacKenzie Tour last year. Cameron Davis shot 64 to finish 11-under and pulled the rug right out from under Day. Quick math shows he beat Day by nine, count ’em, nine shots over the final 18.
Not real good for a guy who tells us he wants to dominate.
Day didn’t even finish second. Mighty Jonas Blixt finished at 10-under with Matt Jones. Cameron Smith, a winner on the PGA Tour, was solo fourth at nine-under.
Day barely edged out charging Jordan Spieth, who spent three days getting used to the greens then finished with 67 to finish eighth, just two back of day. He was eight behind day at the start of the final round.
Day’s lousy day included an argument with new caddie Luke Reardon. That came at the ninth hole when Day’s drive found a fairway bunker. Day’s club selection produced a shot that caught the lip of the trap and led to double-bogey six. He went on to shoot an unremarkable 73.
Of course Day tried to spin the result:
“It’s obviously a little bit disappointing to come out and not finish it, but I’ve just got to kind of look back on it and see what I need to do for next time, because you can’t be perfect all the time and I played three terrific rounds actually, the first three rounds, and I just didn’t put it together on Sunday. And unfortunately when you worry about playing good, sometimes you can actually worry about it too much and force of habit a little bit and actually not end up playing good at all.’’
Only one thing wrong with all of that.
If you’re going to “dominate” then you shouldn’t have to worry about playing good.
You need to go out and just do it without thinking about it.
Unfortunately, Day now has a lot of think about.
“Dominating” should be the least of his worries.
