|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
AT&T PEBBLE BEACH PRO-AMFebruary 10, 2016Jason DayPebble Beach, California THE MODERATOR: We would like to welcome Jason Day to the interview room here at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Thank you for joining us. Last year top-5 here, then you went on an incredible run to finish off your season. If you could, just some opening comments about returning to Pebble. JASON DAY: Yeah, it's great to be here. It's even better with how the weather looks. It's always nice to be back here. I think -- I can't remember how many times I've played here, but I feel like I've played here a lot, and it's just because of the golf courses, the people that come to the golf, and obviously, I just love how I play here. So, definitely looking forward to a good week and seeing how it goes. THE MODERATOR: Open it up for questions, please. Q. You seem to be feeling a little better than you were at Torrey Pines. Just could you offer a quick health update and how long it took you to kick that bug and how you're feeling this week? JASON DAY: Yeah, it kind of -- it was a pretty bad bug. It kind of went through our whole family, which was no good. Dash, Ellie, Lucy and myself got sick. And it was a tough one because I had a fever for five straight days. And I didn't get out of bed for four straight days. I had to go to the hospital on Tuesday twice at Torrey and then trying to do that and defend and defending is hard in its own right. And then trying to get up and play after the preparation was pretty short. The week prior I prepared pretty good, but I didn't hit a ball for five straight days and trying to go into Thursday's round and expect continuing it to be all fine and great, that's difficult, but definitely feeling a lot better. I don't think there's any health issues now. Just obviously just it's a time of the year that everyone gets sick and unfortunately it kind of went through our family. Q. Yours came late in the golfing year, but what's it been like after winning a Major? Your life changed? Do people recognize you anymore and when you go places, I assume at golf tournaments, but other places. What's it like being a Major champion? JASON DAY: Life has not changed for me. Still the same boring person as I was before I won a Major. People do recognize me a little bit more now. And I'm fine with that. It's great. It's a lot better to be recognized than not recognized. I mean it means that you're doing something pretty good. But, no, it really hasn't sunk in. After I won the Major Championship and everyone was asking me has it really sunk in, I mean it didn't. And even more so after I won the BMW Championship and got to No. 1 in the world I woke you up the next day, I'm like, oh, this is just another day. I mean, it just didn't really feel like anything. It was amazing. I always thought when if I ever had the opportunity to win a Major Championship and get to No. 1 in the world, that there would be this moment of or this sense of clarity that it would be like, oh, I've done what I need to do, everything's great. Unfortunately, it never really happened. There was no none of that at all. What that tells me is that I just got to go out and try to do it a lot more and hopefully that clarity comes. But for the most part, no, nothing's really changed. I took three months off at the end of last year and I just trained as hard as I could and trying to get ready for this year. I know that Jordan's playing very well right now, Rickie's playing extremely well right now. Rory just started his campaign across the pond and I'm the one that is kind of a little bit behind these guys. So I got to kind of pick up the slack here and start playing a little bit better. Q. Would you have expected that given the amount of time you took off? JASON DAY: Expected? Q. To kind of start not as crisp? JASON DAY: Yeah, no, you got to understand that Rickie -- and remember Rickie and Jordan don't have kids and stuff like that yet. So, I mean, it's very important for me to make sure that I see my kids grow up and obviously see the birth of my second child, Lucy. And they will get there one day and they will probably go through the same things that I'm feeling and going through as well. So, it's all good stuff. It can be difficult at times, but that's where the balance of being a professional golfer, playing at an elite level against the best players in the world and trying to balance family life and personal stuff is difficult to do. But over time you get better and better at it. Q. The other thing that's kind of interesting is there's a number of you Jordan and Dustin, who have been playing here for a long time, it's just your World Ranking is different now. It becomes a bigger deal. I would be curious, I think you only missed probably twice in your career. What was the appeal about this tournament back then and how has that changed? JASON DAY: I think a little bit when I first came out I'm like oh I'm going to go play Pebble Beach because of the celebrities, because I never really saw growing up I never growing up in Australia, we would see the celebrities on TV, but we never could be arms length away and be able it talk to them. The golf courses are special. Back then when I first played I think we played Poppy Hills that kind of changed to Monterrey Peninsula over the years, but I think the golf rotation is very unique. In a way that we have different sorts of golf courses, but it's so beautiful, even when it's kind of difficult weather and when it's even weather like this, it's even more so. That's the appeal of coming back and just the surrounding area, Carmel is a neat little town there that everyone likes to go and see and hang out. My wife likes it, so that usually has a big kind of deal in when you're going to come back to a tournament. So, and plus I play well here. So that, it all fits into the way I like the whole golf tournament, but pro-ams can be difficult at times with how long the rounds are, but with better weather this week where usually that can kind of run a little bit quicker. So I'm excited about that. Q. Whose the one celebrity you would have wanted to meet when you were a kid? JASON DAY: Oh, I wanted to meet Tiger Woods. There's only one person that I ever got star struck by and that was Tiger Woods. Only one person. Q. Still? JASON DAY: No, not anymore. No. (Laughter.) I give him some crap every now and then so it's a little bit different. Yeah, everyone else, it's just, you know, I can't say it, because it's kind of disgusting, but everyone takes -- no, everyone takes their pants off and goes to the toilet the same way. And that's the way I look at it. And celebrities are just like us and like everyone in the room. Q. How long did it take to you figure that out? JASON DAY: Well, I don't know. Do you go the other way? (Laughter.) Q. Have you been forced to play catch up with your practice because of the time you missed with your illness and where is your game right now? JASON DAY: Oh, I went and played 18 holes at Pebble yesterday with Ryan Ruffels, Cam Smith, and Spencer Levin. Yesterday hit drove the ball nicely, hit it pretty good. The control with the swing I would like to -- well the control with the ball flight I would like to tighten that up a little bit. The touch, I mean everything I would love to get back to the mid season form that I had last year in the second half of the year. But, unfortunately, I just need to get more reps and instead of -- because I typically practice a lot more than I go out and play. Last week I practiced a lot. Once again, I had to, I have to really kind of work my tail off to try and get back to that form and this is only my third tournament of the year. So, I feel good about my game, right now, I think that the biggest thing for me is to really kind of stay mentally sharp and make sure that I don't make silly errors out there, because it's very easy to take a long break, feel like you're everything's good and then you come out and make silly mental errors. And that's just, when you're mid season form, most of the time you're not making mental errors like 3-putting or having soft bogeys, not getting up-and-down from sides of greens where you should be. So, for the most part I'm striking the ball lovely, I think it's really nice, and the touch is coming along and I'm hoping for a good week, because this golf course, the golf courses setup nice for me. Q. Why do you think more pros are sort of embracing the celebrity element of this tournament? For awhile that format seemed to keep players away. Now it seems to be drawing them in. If you go along with that, do you think it's important that this tournament thrives? It's a unique format, obviously. JASON DAY: Yeah, I think that we kind of lost -- there was a little bit of flavor lost with the players I think because of the guys were older. And now we have this young group of guys that enjoy hanging around celebrities, enjoy seeing people or seeing celebrities in the tent and getting to know them and talk to them. So we have a fairly young group of guys that want to do that. Trying to get Tiger Woods and Phil and all those guys constantly going back a few years is a little bit tougher because they're older and they have a schedule to keep and families and all that stuff. So, I definitely see that the fields are a lot stronger these days, which is great. I think that definitely the weather has a lot to help with that and then how the tournament's run. I think Steve John has done a phenomenal job with running this tournament. Just the logistics of this tournament, it's really, really difficult and I think his team has done a fantastic job with how to handle the tournament the right way and. Q. How so? Any example of what he's done? JASON DAY: Well, a lot has changed. Obviously the golf courses changed from Poppy Hills to Monterrey Peninsula. Then on top of it the whole, that whole kind of tent area up there has changed a lot since I've been coming here over the last few years that I've been here. I definitely think it's going to be a difficult task to try and run a golf course with this, the amount of players and the amount of amateurs that come in also trying to get the fans in and out of 17 Mile Drive is very, very difficult, but they seem to do a very, very good job at it and they have been doing it a for a long time and that's why I'm giving a lot of praise to Steve John and his team for getting this tournament up and running every year and getting it going. And it's just, it's quite neat to see how it's kind of getting better and better each and every year. Q. You mentioned playing with the two young Australian guys yesterday, how would you compare their games to your own when you were at those ages? JASON DAY: Oh, Cam, Cam's totally, I'm more -- my game's more compared to Ryan Ruffels. Cam, he hits it very straight. He doesn't hit it as far as us, but his touch around the greens and his wedge game is on point. I think his wedge game is a lot better than mine at that age, a lot better than mine at that age. His short game is probably around the same. But Ryan Ruffels as well definitely has the fire power. He's probably going to gain 10 to 20 more yards because he's only 17. He still has, his body's growing and changing and once he starts filling out and getting a little bit bigger he'll start getting a lot more distance. Same with Cam as well, but there's a lot more explosive power with Ryan. I think Ryan is a better player than me at his age than I was. So, that's kind of exciting for me to see how his career's going to unfold. It's definitely a lot harder to get on to the TOUR these days, but I think that he's going to do pretty well. Q. You often talk about Tiger and some other players out here sort of being mentors to you and kind of helping you along. Do you relish sort of being a mentor to guys like these that are coming up? JASON DAY: Yeah, it's kind of a neat experience where these guys, I'm only 28 though, you know, I don't feel that old, but when I talk to these kids, I mean I do feel old. Because I'm talking about taxes and all this other stuff that is very, very boring. And these guys are talking about music and I'm like, oh, I remember those days. But it's amazing just being out here and getting old, you start looking -- I always -- yeah, anyway. (Laughter.) Bloody hell. Q. Did anybody want to talk taxes with you? JASON DAY: We talked a little bit of taxes with Cam actually. Property taxes, actually. But, yeah, I mean these guys, they're so good. The young guys are so good these days and I just don't know what -- they're just better prepared. So far more prepared than I was coming out at that age. It's no surprise why we see home young guys out here playing and they're so much more prepared because of either the college route that they go or some guys are just really mature. Like Ryan Ruffels, he's far mature than his age. And they're just ready to go out and play because they see guys at a similar age and they think they can do it too and it gives them confidence and belief that they can do it. But with regards to being kind of the mentor, I'm open to it. I'm open to helping anyone that asks me a question. I feel like I give a pretty straightforward answer and it's just up to them if they want to take that advice and think about it and run with it. Q. This room was absolutely heaving a few moments ago and to not nearly as busy now. I'm just wondering if you notice that and what it does to you? JASON DAY: I think Jake Owen pulled most of those people in here, didn't he? (Laughter.) It doesn't worry me. It just needs, it just shows I need to work harder. And hopefully a couple more people will fill the room after that. Q. The question is, you've come a long, long way, with both ambition, and you mentioned balance. So that's the question, really. JASON DAY: Yeah, it's -- I'm trying to find a -- I'm trying to find a perfect explanation for how -- I'm trying to get it across how people, for me to get people to understand what actually wanting it means. You know what I mean? Because we all have a set skill and some guys are better than others. I understand that. But, I mean, talking to Rickie's caddie Joe, my caddie talked to Rickie, Joe Skovron, he asked what's going on with Rickie and he goes, "he just wants it more." It's hard to kind of understand that, because when you want something so bad you just, for some reason, you just, you do everything you possibly can. You don't miss a beat on the process. When you're kind of distracted a little bit and you're going through the motions of just playing TOUR life, you can certainly miss certain steps that get you to a winning point. When you want it so bad, you don't miss those steps. You get up every morning and you eat the right things. You get up after that and you go and practice on the right things. You're very smart. You don't -- when you're out playing a tournament you're very disciplined, everything has to -- when you want it, everything is for that goal of winning. When you kind of sit back a little bit and just you're kind of distracted a little bit, it's very difficult to kind of want it as much. But getting back to your question, there is a balance of having personal life and everything. That's the hardest thing. Because balancing, I mean just being a normal human being that goes from nine to five job is very hard to balance. Family life and business life. And we're exactly the same. We're trying to balance professional golf playing at an elite level, having a lot of media and fans criticize us for hitting the wrong club or doing the wrong thing or coming down the stretch and why did we choke coming down the stretch, but that's just how it is. Right now, I'm just trying to get back to that winning form and I'm grinding as much as I possibly can and hopefully a couple more people will come to my press conference next time. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Jason. Play well this week. JASON DAY: Thanks. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|