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ARNOLD PALMER INVITATIONAL PRESENTED BY MASTERCARDMarch 17, 2016Jason DayOrlando, Florida AMANDA HERRINGTON: We'd like to welcome Jason Day into the Interview Room after a 6-under, 66. Seems to be an Australia theme going on at the top the leaderboard today. Looking at that round, how do you assess today's play? JASON DAY: Yeah, it was nice. I mean I drove it pretty good starting out my round and then I was playing pretty nicely actually, birdieing 8 and going on to the 9th hole and hooked one out of bounds. That wasn't too good. Little bit of a surprise there. Being in that kind of position before where pop-up when you're playing great. That's the moments where you just got to be mentally tough and mentally strong to be able to, you know, forget about that stuff because early on in the season I probably wouldn't have forgot about it as easy as I did today. It would have probably hurt my round. Fortunately today I got on to it and got on to 10 and started playing good again. But, very, very pleased with how the round went. Q. Did you need a round like this? JASON DAY: Anytime you're shooting 6-under, especially at a golf course like this, with how tough everything is, it does wonders for your confidence but, at the same time, this golf course, it does give out some birdies but it can -- you can bogey some pretty easy, make some pretty easy bogies out there as well. I was very happy with par on 17 and very, very pleased with the par on 18. But for the most part I killed the par-5s which was fantastic. That's what you have to do around here and, you know, it's good because the last few rounds at Doral felt like something was coming around nicely and it kind of crept on to this tournament and the momentum from that, did -- those last two days which I felt I played pretty good, you know, you can kind of see it in the way that I was hitting my shots out there today. It wasn't like the first -- sounds like this tent is going to fall over. AMANDA HERRINGTON: Yes. JASON DAY: The last few rounds of the Doral I felt I was hitting the shots I needed to hit. Seeing the shots the way I was seeing them and, you know, today I was doing the same thing. It was great, bar 9. Other than that it was all good. Once again, we're in the first round of a tournament and I got to make sure that I'm patient because it's easy to be very aggressive out there on the lines that you take on the tees and on the lines you take in the greens. The greens are bouncing pretty solid but, you know, you just try and give yourself the putts and hopefully they fall. Q. Kind of a similar question, but was there sort of a sense of urgency at this point in the year for you to kind of get things going a certain direction, not that you really played all that bad? JASON DAY: No. It wasn't -- it hasn't been the greatest start. Everyone knows that. Everyone can see that especially from if you're a top ranked player in the world you're expecting to go play well and everyone is expecting you to play well. There was no sense of urgency at all for me, really. I didn't try and tell myself that. I just kept on saying, "Just make sure you stay patient and things will happen, it will happen." I just got to make your sure I get the reps under my belt and hope it will work. This is one good round, one good round in the right direction and that's something I just have to build on and if I can build on that that would be great especially with obviously the upcoming tournament that everyone is talking about at Augusta. So, that definitely helps. Q. Jason, walk us through the third shots on 17 and 18. Looked like you didn't have the greatest angle in the world on 17 and then on 18 was it nestled down there enough? JASON DAY: Someone is happy out there. Q. They're playing tennis. JASON DAY: They are? Fair enough. Q. The one at 18, looked like it was nestled down maybe far enough. Was there any concern about hitting it way past the hole? JASON DAY: The one on 17 I actually hit a great 7-iron from the tee. If it was like a yard left or a couple yards further. It's sitting really nicely on the green and I've got a putt for birdie. But, you know, obviously it was just off and it was in the bunker and it's kind of one of those shots where you have to hit it soft enough but hard enough out of the bunker and kind of let things roll. Something that you don't really practice too much because it's almost that you can just kind of -- it's very easy to flub and very easy to hit it thin and go past. So, it's kind of the one Bill has had on 18 in the playoff. One of those awkward bunker shots that you had. I hit a great shot there and the putt was a little right to left and straight up the hill but for the most part I mean I was just glad to get through there with a par. And then I mean 18 is a brutal hole if you don't hit the tee shot in the fairway and if it's either short of that walkway or long of it I feel like I'm a really good -- got a good bunker technique to get out of that and spin it enough to get down to the hole. It sat right in the middle of the walkway with all the grass going totally against me sitting up on a tee but with a big clump of grass right behind it. When I hit the shot it came out exactly the way I wanted to. Felt like I got a little unlucky because I thought it would roll down there a little bit closer. As I was walking around the green looking at my chip shot I made sure to look at where the best leave was and obviously I was looking at 20 feet below the hole putting back up and left it ten feet short. I kind of knew the line. I went up and hit. Those are the days it's good momentum going to tomorrow's round. So, things worked out great for me today but I've got to make sure that I got to stay focused because, once again, I said it earlier, this kind of golf course, it's very easy to get yourself out of the tournament if you start taking too aggressive lines and if you make soft bogies like it could have been on 17 and 18, that would have been very, very soft bogies instead of me sitting here at 6-under I would have been there at 4-under and one shot behind the lead. Q. Jason, when you walked to 15 tee you were two back. Did you know that at the time? Did you know where you stood? JASON DAY: I really don't -- I look at the leaderboards but you don't really pay attention to them too much until Sundays, late Saturdays, Sunday rounds because I mean everyone knows they're the kind of days where you kind of got to shoot for it or not and be patient or be aggressive. Right now the first three rounds you're just thinking I got to get myself into contention and then if I can get myself into contention then hopefully I can be either patient or aggressive enough to go out there and shoot the score. Q. You went from two back to one ahead on 15 with a great shot and 16 was obviously a great shot. JASON DAY: Yeah. 15 was 152 yards with a 5-iron just try to slug it up between the bunkers. Tried to land it right before and ran up there nicely. It was a very straight putt kind of down the hill into the little bowl area. Got away with one there. Those are the times where -- Q. You don't practice it. JASON DAY: You don't practice them at all and then they're the ones that you're like okay I just got one. They kind of gave me one, I take that and run with it. Hitting a great drive down 16 and have a 6-iron in my hand. You can be kind of aggressive with the line you take especially with how much room there was from the pin location to the back end of that hazard. Had 190 yards. I was trying to hit a nice 5, 6-iron over the hazard and land it perfectly and left myself a little up the hill ten foot slider and knocked it in. Q. Jason, finishing the way did you, was that showing a little bit of that killer instinct you were talking about Doral? Are you also familiar with Tiger's record here at this course? JASON DAY: With how many wins he's had? Q. Yeah. JASON DAY: I don't know if I'll touch that. It's something to shoot for, I guess, right? Q. I'm kind of connecting. You had the conversation with him. JASON DAY: No. Almost this close to asking have you got any advice for me. I would just focus on myself because I felt good about the game coming into this tournament and I'm sitting here today shooting 66 but getting up and down. I felt like my focus is really good today compared to the first four tournaments that I played. My pre-shot routine was a lot quicker in the first four tournaments. This round I felt like it was a lot more deliberate in what kind of shot actually I wanted to hit and try to hit and they weren't so many misses left and right and for the most part hit it really solid for the whole day but I really tried to focus very hard on making sure that my whole pre-shot routine was deliberate and had a purpose in what I tried to hit out there. Q. Jason, how would you compare the play you played today versus the roll you were on last summer? JASON DAY: Oh, the bunker shot on 12? Yeah, the bunker shot on 12 was nasty. That's actually probably the highlight of my day because I -- even though up and down on 18 was good but it wasn't as good as the bunker shot on 12 because I went at it pretty aggressively and when I'm starting to hit shots like that, starting to gain a little bit more confidence with the swing and hitting more kind of feel shots and it means that there's a lot of touch coming back into my hands, lot of feel coming back into my swing especially with how I'm driving it as well. The lines that I see when I visualize, they're starting to come out kind of similar to what I'm actually hitting. So, it's coming around nicely. I wouldn't say it's kind of mid-season form like it was last year but it's getting closer and closer every time I play. I think once that happens and once I become a lot more deliberate -- and I was talking to Edgar about it, once I become a lot more deliberate in my pre-shot routine and a purpose behind each shot I hit like it's my last, then I feel like I'm ready to go out and play the best I can. Q. We noticed there was a little bit of wind in here when you started the press conference. Were you bothered by it at all today before you hit shots and do you think you have an advantage because usually it's less windy in the morning in Florida? JASON DAY: Yeah. Yeah. It kind of got up later on in the round. It did a little bit kind of got -- felt like we're in a hot spa at the start of the round and it was pretty hot much -- don't get me wrong I love -- I'd much rather have 100-degree and the wind as long as it's hot because it's good for my body. I feel like I can go at the ball a lot harder and be a lot more aggressive through my swing with that. But, for the most part, it wasn't blowing too much and for the first three-quarters of the round and then the latter part of the round starting blowing and it's a pretty difficult wind especially coming from going down a little bit more across on the left on 17 and 18. They're the shots that you kind of, you know, if I wanted to hit driver on 18 but if I crushed it it would have gone straight through into the water and I'm hitting 3-wood back there and miss the fairway, you've got a pretty long way. I had 180 yards to the pin. So, it didn't really affect me until I got later into the round to really trying to calculate that wind. I got to look at the weather. Everyday -- I look at it every night, make sure I look at the weather every night to see where the wind is coming then I can kind of pick and choose what kind of clubs that I want to hit or how aggressive I can be on certain holes or not, kind of visualize that right before I sleep and when I wake up it may change. We can't really control the weather but it does change and you got to understand that game plans do change, the weather, too. Hoping for some nice, calm weather in the morning and some fresh greens and hopefully we can go a little bit lower. Q. Jason, three of the first six are all Australians. What do you make of that? JASON DAY: Absolutely nothing (laughter). I don't know. It's easy to see Adam Scott is playing well. Let's put it this way: Like everyone talks about his putting and how bad his putting was for a very long period of time. I don't think it's that bad. He always had a good stroke and it was just the amount of time and practice and effort that he put into it because I mean he putted great with a longer putter. He's certainly putting good with a short putter. He's kind of oozing with confidence right now. The way he hits it it's no surprise he's in the position that he is today with Mark. You know, he made a big change from going from one company to another company so that obviously takes a little bit of time but it seems like he's fitting into that roll pretty good with the equipment change. And myself, just took me a little bit longer to get my -- I shouldn't say that. I was going to say something -- to get my -- yeah. Q. Your act. JASON DAY: That's exactly what I was going to say. Q. Only three letters. I'm sorry Jason, with two tournaments left before the Masters, one of them being Match Play, do you feel like you need to have at least one tournament of serious contention before Augusta or does it matter to you? JASON DAY: It would be nice to be in contention and get those competitive juices going again and get those feelings and the adrenaline rush you get when you're in contention because it does help a lot. I mean just like the way I was playing going into the British Open, how I finished the British Open and kind of opened up and panned out that I won four out of the six that I played on that stretch. So, it definitely helps. I mean right now I'm in a good position to do that. I got the try to get myself into contention and see how I go about it. But, you know, with the first Major coming up things can happen. Like you don't have to go into a Major playing great or you can go into a Major playing fantastic and go the opposite way. So, golf is a very strange sport. You can find something very quickly on the range, very quickly on the putting green that will click and for some reason you just got all the confidence in the world. So, right now I'm just trying to win a tournament right now. I'm really thinking about this week and not trying to think about too far ahead with what's coming up with the Match Play and obviously Augusta but always good memories going back to Augusta but it's good to shoot the score that I did today because it does a lot for my confidence and I'm just hoping that I can keep it going for the next three days after this. AMANDA HERRINGTON: Jason, thank for your time. JASON DAY: Thanks. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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