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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

May 10, 2016

Jason Day

Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida

MARK WILLIAMS: All right. We would like to welcome Jason Day into the interview room at THE PLAYERS Championship. Jason, you've had a week off or a shortened week given the carryover into Monday of the Zurich Classic which you finished T5. Just talk about your preparation coming into THE PLAYERS Championship and during last week.

JASON DAY: Yeah, it was nice. Took -- well, we got back late Monday night and then all of Monday. I went to the Cavs game, which was cool. Sat in the seats where Ellie got crushed. (Laughter.)

But I didn't take Ellie this time, so I had a lot of fun there. Yeah, I mean, I took Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday off, just to try and -- I think we had three days of 5:00 starts and one day of 4:30 starts at Zurich, which was just -- it was a lot of sitting around waiting and trying to get through that weather, which was -- yeah, you had to have a lot of patience that week. But yeah, Friday got into practice mode and practiced Friday, practiced Saturday and then played Sunday as well. And then got here yesterday and played nine holes and practiced again.

MARK WILLIAMS: Before we take some questions, is there a different feeling for you this week coming to THE PLAYERS as the No. 1 ranked player in the world?

JASON DAY: Yeah, I think it definitely feels different. Obviously I haven't had the greatest finishes here at THE PLAYERS Championship, but with that said, I feel a lot more prepared this year than I ever have in my career coming into this event. So I'm hoping that is a little bit of a different result this year, but I think the biggest thing for me is just to really try and get -- this course, it's a difficult golf course in regards that, for me, not so much trying to hit the driver off the tee, but there's a few 3-woods out there for me that I have to hit, and if there's one club in the bag that's uncomfortable for me at times, it's the 3-wood. That's why I might be hitting a few more 2-irons off the tee this week, just to try and get it in play, so that I can hit the fairways and try and get it on the green and give myself an opportunity at birdie.

But we'll see how it goes. I feel good about my game and I'm looking forward to the challenge this week.

MARK WILLIAMS: Terrific. Questions for Jason?

Q. How do you rank this tournament in your own mind, and how do your performances here in the past come into that?
JASON DAY: Right. Watching it back when Tiger and all those guys won, I wish it was kind of overseeded; it would be nice. Bermuda is just a tough grass. I grew up in on Bermuda, and you expect that I would play a lot better on Bermuda, but I clearly haven't in my career.

With that said, I've just got to somehow change that way of thinking about this golf course and just try and go out there and execute the game plan. But as a whole, this tournament, I mean, this is the toughest field we have all year. It's a big event. It's getting bigger and bigger every time I come back. And you can visually see it, not only feel it.

It's a golf tournament that you really do want to win and have it on your resume at the end of your career because it's such a huge event. This is one of those tournaments where, if you're on the border of getting into the Hall of Fame, this could kick it over and get you into the Hall of Fame.

Q. You said you weren't going to use driver as often and you might use a 2-iron. So --
JASON DAY: 3-wood. I probably -- I will use driver but I probably won't use 3-wood -- I'll use 3-wood, but I'll probably try -- depends how comfortable I feel. Go ahead with your question.

Q. So how far does your 2-iron go, how far does your 3-wood go, what kind of distance are you giving up, and what holes can you still use driver on?
JASON DAY: Yeah, okay, I can go through them real quick. One is 3-wood, two is 3-wood, four could be 3-wood or 2-iron. Five, if the wind is down, I have to hit 3-wood because it goes too far. Six is an iron. Seven is a driver, possibly 3-wood. Nine is driver. 10 is 3-wood, 11 is driver, 12 is 2-iron. And then from there on in it's pretty much driver until 18, where I could possibly hit driver or I could hit 2-iron. 3-wood is just an awkward shot there because you're still bringing in the trouble on 18 up the right side, whereas if you hit 2-iron you can lay it back.

But my 2-iron goes about, depending on heat and the firmness of the fairways, I usually carry my 2-iron about 250 yards off the tee and then it runs another whatever it does on the fairway, how firm it is. Then the 3-wood goes about 285 yards off the tee. So there's a big difference in gap, so there's at least 30 yards. That's three clubs. That is a big difference, but I have to weigh out between hitting an iron or 3-wood just because if I miss it in the rough, you're going to get fliers out of here, and if you get fliers out of the rough it's very difficult to hold the greens. And then if you miss the greens then it's very difficult to try and get up-and-down because of the uncertainty of the lies that you can get around these greens in Bermudagrass.

Q. There's so much focus on 16, 17 and 18 here, can you cite a hole that's particularly memorable the first 15, and do you have a different mindset before you get to that conclusion?
JASON DAY: Put me on the spot. No, I don't really. Obviously everyone talks about 16, 17 and 18, how tough. 16 if you can get a birdie there, it's still a tough par-5, but 17 and 18 is tough, as well. But if I had to think about it, the back nine plays tougher than the front. If I'm thinking about it, the front nine yields probably a lot more birdies than the back side, so getting through the front as long as you can get through -- you get through the front and then in 2- or 3-under and you can kind of grab your couple coming home. So I would say there's not one hole that kind of sticks out in my mind on the back side, but obviously other than 16, 17 and 18, where you kind of just got to execute and hit the correct golf shots.

For the most part, if I'm looking at the stats, I know that I have to, the stretch through what is it? 13, 14, 15 is, if I can play that kind of even par going through that through the week, then I'll be pretty happy with it.

Q. I don't know if you remember a year ago we sat and we were kind of still talking about you needing to become the closer, making that step. Obviously since then you've become a pretty decent closer and won some massive events. How has that last 12 months put you in good stead to do better here?
JASON DAY: I wish I knew what -- I wish I knew that I could just say this is exactly what you have to do to close. It's all different. Yeah, I mean it's sometimes you win great and pretty and sometimes you win just ugly, like Bay Hill wasn't that pretty and I wasn't hitting it that great, and I somehow just got it done. I think it's that mental approach that it's okay, so every week I get a stat sheet of what I'm going to or how I play each hole from Cole. And he tells me, okay, this is what you need to play under par; this is what you need to play even par, and so on and so forth. So, going into this -- I feel like I'm more prepared. Preparation prevents bad performance, hopefully, and that's all I'm trying to do is prepare the best I possibly can, and I think if I can prepare the best I can and so nothing really pops up and surprises me, that gives me the best shot or best opportunity at playing good golf. And from there, that mental toughness to keep pushing on, to really not stop fighting and keep pushing on and understand that you're never really out of the fight.

And I was saying this to -- Sandra Gal was here yesterday, and she was walking with me for a hole on 18 and we were talking, and I said you know what, it's just, when you're coming down the stretch, you just got to get yourself into contention. Just keep yourself around, just keep yourself around, because you just never know what's going to happen, and then I told her that -- I immediately said Bay Hill. I wasn't really doing anything special that day and then birdied 17 and then parred 18 and I won the tournament.

Q. That's where I'm sort of going. Maybe a year ago, two years ago, that Jason doesn't win Bay Hill. This one does.
JASON DAY: Right. Well, that's just what failure is about. You fail enough times, hopefully -- and you learn from it -- and you try and get better. That's how you improve yourself, improve yourself and improve yourself as a player as well. The moment where you kind of dwell on, I should have won this and I should have done that, and look at the wrong things and don't really learn, that's when you're going to make the same mistakes over and over again.

Granted, I'm not going to close all the tournaments out like Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus have in the past, but I'm going to do my best trying to do it. I'm not going to stop fighting until the end, even if I do lose.

Q. You mentioned that the 3-wood feels uncomfortable for you?
JASON DAY: At times.

Q. Can you explain what you mean by that.
JASON DAY: Everyone has an uncomfortable club in their bag. We just don't talk about it. I'm okay with talking about it.

I think that, yeah, 3-wood has always been, ever since I was a kid, I've always kind of I've overdone a draw on my 3-wood too much. Driver has always been fine and the rest of the clubs have been fine. It's just for some reason the 3-wood, and that's just one of those clubs.

Yeah, I mean, I just sometimes I just overdo it a little bit. But when I feel good about my 3-wood and I feel comfortable with it, then I've got all the confidence in the world that I can get up there and stripe it down the middle. The only thing is if I'm not comfortable with it, the only thing that have I to do is practice harder with it. And if I start practicing a lot harder with it, then I start seeing results and I get more confident and then that gets out of the way. But obviously that's one club that I've always been uncomfortable with and I'm okay with it.

Q. So do you feel comfortable with it now, and if not, how long do you have to work on it to make it feel comfortable?
JASON DAY: I just, I recently put an M2 club in my bag so I'm very comfortable with it -- just a plug there for TaylorMade. (Laughter.)

No, it's just, like I said, I just put the new M2 in. I feel comfortable with it. I feel good with it. I enjoy the driver so much because it's got the biggest face, and if I miss it, then I don't miss it too -- I mean it's got a large face. I use the whole face at times. But, yeah, the 3-wood, yeah, like I said, I just need to practice with it a little bit more and try and get a little bit more comfortable with it, but this week's been feeling good. The last few weeks that I've been using it has been fine. I just got to get up there and try and not think about it too much and hit the shot.

Q. I want to go back to what you were talking about with closing tournaments. Do you remember what sort of the first big tournament you had a chance to win was that you didn't close it out and then sort of what you learned from it and maybe how you got over that and figured out how to become a closer or just got over it.
JASON DAY: Yeah. I was trying to think. Nationwide tournament, it was in San Francisco. It was right after the events down in Australia and New Zealand or something like that. It was where Omar Ureste won. I was, I had a chance to lead -- I had a chance to win and I shot 80, I think. It was a pretty good 80. I hooked my ball off the first tee, hit a little girl. I was kind of shaken up after that, but yeah, I learnt a good lesson obviously how to handle pressure that day, also not to break up with your girlfriend the night before. That definitely doesn't help. And to be able to know that if you do have certain issues off the course, that just you need to resolve them before you go on to the course, because a lot of personal stuff that happens off course has a direct, I guess, relationship to how you play on the golf course, as well.

So you have to have a very happy life to also play good golf, to stay focused, and then also, I think playing that day and not playing that great taught me that I can't take things for granted as much as I was. And I need to make sure that I keep working hard.

And then, obviously, watching Sergio Garcia at the Barclays when I think he played against -- I think he was in a playoff against Vijay Singh that year. It was at Ridgewood Country Club, I think, and I was in the last round and I shot 75. I mean I was just watching him and I've never seen a guy move the ball in so many different trajectories with a wood in the first place, 3-woods, drivers, everything. And then on top of it, he did nothing very -- he didn't really do anything special that day. He just kept the ball out in front of him, just did what he needed to do to get the ball in the hole, and then from there he just somehow got himself in a playoff.

That really taught me, you know, you just try and keep yourself into contention and just stick around on Sunday and you may -- sometimes when you don't have your best stuff like Bay Hill, it may just fall your way.

Q. Expanding on learning from you called it failures, what have you learned playing here that might help you, because this is a place that you have struggled a little bit at.
JASON DAY: Right. Don't make a lot of bogeys and doubles. Need to make more birdies. I mean if I look at my stats, I don't make enough birdies. I make too many mistakes.

And then if I break it down even more, probably don't hit enough fairways with my 2-iron, 3-wood. And from there, if I don't hit those fairways, that's less opportunities for me to hit the greens because obviously it's harder to judge what the grass is going to do with either flier or not flier.

Hitting the greens is tough when there's warm weather and it starts to get firm, and these green complexes are pretty difficult with trying to get the balls close to the pins if you're coming out of the rough. Short-side yourself here and it's very difficult to get up-and-down. So with all that said, I just got to do the opposite of that. So, yeah, I mean it's -- what is it, 14-under is the average score that wins here. So you just got to get to that and if you can get past 14-under, then you should have a high percentage chance of actually winning this tournament.

Q. You're the one hitting the shots and you're the one making the decisions down the stretch, but I'm curious how much you would give credit to Tiger Woods for some of the advice he's given you over the last year or two, and how fortunate do you feel to have one of the game's best closers willing to give you that kind of information?
JASON DAY: Yeah, I mean, it's huge. Obviously, like you said, I'm hitting the shots and making the decisions down the line, but some of that stuff that -- some of the shots I hit, some of the decisions I make is because of what me and Tiger have talked about in the past.

If there's a guy that you want to pick someone's brain, it's him. Did it for so long, did it for many, many years, won so many golf tournaments. He knows what it's like to win in the modern era, and he was an idol of mine obviously growing up, and look, I don't take everything that he gives me, you know, all the advice that he gives me, I don't take everything, because it may not work for me.

It's like me trying to give a piece of advice to another young kid. I just tell them, this is what I do; you got to find out what works best for you and then try and go from there. He gives me some advice and I go, okay, that would work for him, maybe, but maybe I just think a little differently. I always try and take it in, digest it and then try and implement it if I can. But for the advice, it's just -- if I'm struggling like -- not struggling, I shouldn't say struggling. If I'm looking for a bit of a pep talk or something like that, I always text him and say, ask him how he's going and I talk to him about the game and then he just -- and then he always ends with like, go get it done. You got to earn the wins, they're not given to you.

It's a lot about just trying to get better mentally and that mental toughness that he had for so long.

Q. Jason, if you define the big four as yourself and Jordan and Rory and Rickie, I think you guys had 14 wins last year. Lately you guys have racked up some top-10s, but it's been a little slow on the win side. I think you've got three victories as a group this year. Does that just underline how hard it is to win out here and give you more appreciation with every day that goes by what Tiger did and how often he was able to win?
JASON DAY: Yeah, I mean, the percentage rate of what Tiger was winning at was just insane. Yeah, just thinking about what he has accomplished in his life, obviously, I mean there's probably not -- we're not going to see another person like that for awhile. Granted, things could change and someone could get very hungry, and with winning that much, you have to be soaked in that profession; that's all you think about. And there's some sacrifice that comes with that, as well, on other parts of your life.

Because when you're so focused, single focused, on trying to be the best and trying to win every single week, which he was, that's all he could think about. Some of these younger guys, they're looking to start a family, and Rory's getting married coming up shortly, I think, and Rickie and Jordan and those guys are enjoying life and they're young. Just priorities change, and sometimes we can't -- I mean, it's great to see what Tiger accomplished in the past, but unfortunately we're not Tiger Woods and we're just trying to do our best to play as well as we can. And for me personally, I'm just, right now, other than my family, all I think about is golf. I think about family first and then golf, and that's all I think about in life. And I'm very motivated to try and win each and every week that I tee it up.

I'm sure as time goes on priorities will change for me, but I'm hoping that I can stay at No. 1 for a long time if I can and try and win as many times as I can, as well. But, yeah, watching Tiger dominate back in the day, it was scary to watch. I got the back end of his dominance, and watching him win at Flint, Michigan, at the Buick up there and he shot 6-under each day, shot 24-under and just blew the field away, and he was just so -- he had so much confidence that he would hit a shot and walk straight away that he just knew exactly where it was going to go. It was an absolute pleasure to watch that. I think a lot of the guys out here, even though we're playing against him, we miss that, as well, because sometimes when someone's doing that, it drives a person to get better. For us, as you say the big four, when one of us sees each other doing well, the other guys kind of pick it up and want to do well, as well.

Q. Are you surprised that you guys haven't dominated quite the way that you did last year?
JASON DAY: No. What is it, May? You know, things can change pretty quickly. I was talking earlier this year about the process and trying to get better each and every week, and everyone was asking me why I haven't won yet. And then I won two tournaments in a row, and then that was the end of that. And, yeah, I mean it's, I wouldn't say it's early, it's kind of mid-season, but you just never know. Like some guys could just go on an absolute tear. You never know with golf. It's such a funny game, like you look at Brian Stuard who went through a bunch of missed cuts and then won a tournament, and then James Hahn missed eight cuts in a row and won a tournament. How does that even work? You know what I mean? It's just a mind-blowing game where you can just be pretty low in your confidence and not be playing that great and then turn around and win a big event. It's just, that's just how golf works. There's confidence and momentum switches, but it's just, it's a fun game to play.

Q. You mentioned this being a tournament anyone would want on their resume, but to you personally, what would it mean to win here?
JASON DAY: Yeah, I mean, it's -- like I said, this is, if you're on the border of maybe getting elected into the Hall of Fame, this could potentially push you over it and get you in. This is our -- I believe this is our toughest field of the year. We have the best players from Europe, we have the best players from the PGA TOUR, as well, that are playing against each other on a difficult golf course.

This golf course tests every aspect of your game. And it's a good test to see -- if you win this, you're amongst some of the -- well, a lot of the greats in the game. And it would be an absolute honor to be able to put my name there, and to be able to walk underneath from the locker room past the caddie hut there underneath in the basement there, to be able to see my picture up on the wall, because I don't want to walk through there during my career and not be able to see my picture up there at least once.

MARK WILLIAMS: Jason, we appreciate you coming in and enjoy the rest of the week.

JASON DAY: Cheers.

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