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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIPMay 12, 2016Jason DayPonte Vedra Beach, Florida MARK WILLIAMS: Jason, thanks for joining us. 9-under 63 in the first round, tying the course record at TPC Sawgrass with four others, including your countryman, Greg Norman, who won here the year that he shot 63. Obviously you got away to a flier with three birdies on 10, 11 and 12. Just give us an assessment of your day. JASON DAY: Yeah, I wasn't really expecting to come out and hole the first one on 10. The 10th hole, hit a 2-iron down the left and hit my pitching wedge on the green, but I'm not expecting to hole a 25-footer out of the blocks. But getting that under the belt and going on from there to hit a great tee shot on 11, ended up making birdie, as well. Just very pleased with how I played today. Tee to greens was pretty decent, was actually really good, and then once I got on the greens, I felt like I could hole everything. MARK WILLIAMS: Was there any moment in the round after those first three holes where you felt like there was something that happened that kept that momentum going? JASON DAY: No, not really. I said earlier, I just felt tired all day for some reason. I don't know. We felt like we got up early, but that kind of took my mind off anything else other than just if I'm a little tired, I've got to focus a little bit harder to try and hit the shots, the correct shots out there. I think that little bit of extra focus helped me to keep the momentum going because I definitely hit a lot of greens out there, and when I did miss the greens on the fringe for the most part, I gave myself a good chance at birdie. I just feel really good about how things went today. Q. I know you guys don't think about numbers and things like this and everything, but on the 9th tee, first of all, were you aware of the course record here? JASON DAY: Yes. Q. And the club decision on the 9th tee, was that a reflection of what you had been talking about the other day about throttling back a little bit? JASON DAY: Yeah, I was a little disappointed -- well, not disappointed. I hit a good putt on 8, it just unfortunately just lipped out. Once I got to 7, then I started thinking about the course record. Birdieing 7, then I'm like, okay, I think I can birdie 8 and 9 and that'll kind of clip the course record. It would be nice to shoot 10-under. I got out there, and I'll I'm thinking, okay, the wind is down off the right off 9. If I hit 3-wood down there, because I'm not going to hit driver there ever, because obviously 3-wood and driver bring the water into play on the right, if I hit 3-wood down there, I can't get my 2-iron over the trees, so it leaves me where I have to hit a hook around the tree. I dialed it back and hit a 2-iron. The 2-iron went forever, went 297 yards, so I mean, if you can hit 2-iron 297 yards, I'd hit that all the time straight. Yeah, I hit a good shot down there, and then having a 3-wood that went a little -- I was thinking it was going to be a little less, and I hit a nice full 3-wood, had to try and take a little bit off the 3-wood and just chunked it a little bit, but ended up making a great birdie. Q. Mate, you said you played great tee to green. You did hit obviously a lot of greens, but you could have been better off the tee. JASON DAY: Yeah, you would say that. Q. Well, what I'm saying is you've done extraordinary in my mind to shoot 63 when you actually didn't have your best stuff. JASON DAY: Yeah, once again, got a little bit lucky in spots. 11, I got lucky where I could hit it through a chute. 7, got a little unlucky but lucky, as well, hitting the downslope of the bunker and kicking it towards into the hazard. The control that I had on the clubs today were nice, especially the irons out of the rough. I had a few iron shots out of fairway bunkers, as well. It's more predictable coming out of fairway bunkers than it is out of the rough here. When I did miss a fairway, I ended up hitting it on the green or somewhere close to the pin and gave myself the opportunity. Q. And how do you explain that 68 was your best score before and 81 was your last score here? That's 18 shots difference. JASON DAY: Yeah, that's a pretty good score. Q. Did you expect you could do this? JASON DAY: Shoot 63? No, well, you just never know until it happens. I knew that I could -- the way I was feeling, the way I was playing, I knew that I could shoot a good score, especially with how the greens were so receptive today. They were really nice, holding on a lot of shots. That's what made it a little bit easier coming out of the rough, as well, with -- you're coming out with a flier and these firm greens, there's no way you can hold the greens, and then you're chipping a lot more and trying to save par, and that makes it a little bit more difficult. But yeah, it's round 1. I've got to try and focus on playing a solid round 2 and then after that round 3 and round 4 and just trying to keep pushing forward. That's my main goal right now is try to get as much under par as I can. Q. Ben mentioned that 81 that you shot last year. Can you sort of compare and contrast today's round to the last competitive round you played -- JASON DAY: There was a lot of frustration last year. And the funny thing was I think I shot 69 in the first round, too, so I shot 69-81-63. Yeah, I know. I can't really remember. I've got a really bad memory, which is kind of a good thing in golf, I guess, where you don't really remember the bad stuff as much. But yeah, I really can't remember too much. I know that I played -- I think I played with Tiger and Jordan, maybe. I might be lying. Q. Rory. JASON DAY: Rory? Yeah, maybe. I don't know. You would know more. Yeah, today was just -- you know, I just kept it out in front of me, and then when I got on the greens, the speed of my putts were just so great that I could just pick a line, and my green reading was great, as well, that I just picked my line, hit my putt, and it was just going to go in, or around the hole. I just felt so good with the putter. But to shoot 81 and then 63 is a bit of a -- 18 shots difference is a lot. But I feel like I'm a lot more prepared this year than I was last year, especially with how I was playing last year. I was playing pretty decent golf coming into this event, and I'm playing a lot better golf than I was last year. Q. Did you like this course the first time you saw it? Did you feel like it suited your game? JASON DAY: I thought it was very tough. Once again, this course you can -- you have to hit a lot of 3-woods around here, especially if you're a longer hitter, and I always said that 3-wood was always kind of that uncomfortable club that I've always had in the bag. I worked very, very hard on hitting a lot of 3-wood tee shots and fairway 3-woods off the ground last week when I was coming into this, just preparing back home in Columbus, because I knew that I was going to hit a lot of them. And I guess as you go on, especially playing here, you kind of learn exactly where and where not to hit it, and with how the green speeds are and how soft the greens are right now, we're expecting -- I'm expecting the greens to get a little firmer and a little faster. With that said, you've just got to be a little bit more careful with how you go about your game plan going from here on in. Q. What did you have right of the second green for your third shot? What kind of shot? Were there any others today that you felt were particularly challenging? JASON DAY: Yeah, the second shot on -- you said 2? Q. 2. JASON DAY: The second shot on 2, there was a stick right behind my ball, and that kind of shot it way right. I was trying to hit down on it to kind of hit it a little bit lower so I wouldn't hit the stick, but I hit the stick and just kind of flung it out to the right. But then I had a decent lie in the pine straw there. It wasn't hitting down. There was nothing around it other than just it was kind of sitting on a little bit of a tee off the pine straw. Had to open the face up a little bit and just kind of loft it up and just land it a few paces on the green and let it roll back down. I didn't expect it to go down to a foot, but it was a nice little execution there on the putt because the only thing you had to do was catch it clean. If you caught it a little bit thin or a little bit heavy, then it's obviously not going to have that result. Just trying to think of anything else. No, not really. The shot on 11 through the trees was exactly what we wanted to do. If we got that shot going a little bit left and long there, it's impossible to get it up-and-down, so we made sure to keep it short and in the bunker if we could or somewhere up the right side, and ended up making a good birdie there. But for the most part, I was pretty pleased with everything else. Q. I think there was something like 112 guys at the moment under par. Does that surprise you, given the venue and the history? JASON DAY: No, it doesn't surprise me at all. The fairways -- how hot the conditions are. I was just talking to someone coming in. The conditions are very hot, so the ball is going forever. Guys can dial it back a little bit and not hit certain clubs or drivers or 3-woods. They can hit irons off the tees, give yourself a lot more opportunities coming in from the fairway. And you can attack these pin locations, especially this morning. You can attack them coming in from the fairway or even the rough or the fairway bunker. But the greens are pure. They're so nice and they're rolling so perfect. It's kind of sad that they're going to rip the bloody greens up. I'm expecting it's going to be even better next year. But yeah, it's not surprising to me that there's so many guys under par. Q. You touched on this a little bit before, but was there any part of you that saw this coming prior to this week, a round like this? JASON DAY: Shooting a low score? No, I wasn't -- to be honest, I'm not really thinking about it. I just was trying to be patient with myself out there, give myself opportunities on the greens. It just kept on building and building, this round, just one after another. It just got better and better, and I made the right choices, good decisions out there, and like I said, I was just a little bit tired. When you're a little tired and you really want to play well, you have to focus and give that little bit of extra focus into what shots you need to hit, and when you do that, you're not missing any information. It turned out great, so I'm pleased. But round 2 is going to happen tomorrow, so I've got to start focusing on that. Q. To be clear, so you were saying you've shot lower scores before but maybe not put together such an impressive round. Why, because of the conditions, the field, the way you've played the course in the past? JASON DAY: Yeah, this is, I think -- they say this is our fifth major, and it's a big event. You can see by the crowds how many people are out there. The course conditions in the past have been pretty tough. 14-under par is the average score, and just recently that has won around here. So it's not an easy course. I mean, it does give out birdies, but you definitely have to focus on the holes that are tough. With Bermudagrass, missing the fairways here and there, you can catch fliers. But with that said, I mean, the course was -- the greens were very receptive with the iron shots coming in. I mean, you can attack -- and to be honest, I was under par going through my first nine, but there was guys at 7-under when I was at 5-under, and I'm sitting there going, okay, I've got to keep pushing. When you see someone up to the leaderboard that's kind of distancing themselves or away from the field, you've got to do something to catch up to them, and I think that's what is keeping guys pushing and playing better, because sometimes there's weeks on the golf course, especially more so Sundays, where there's not too many -- if the course and the conditions are tough and the scores aren't that great, then everyone else doesn't really play that shoots very low scores. Today was I think a good momentum kick for everyone knowing that they've got to chase that lead. Q. A couple course record questions. How many places around the world do you suppose you hold a course record? JASON DAY: I don't know. Q. Even back in Australia. JASON DAY: I beat Jack Nicklaus's record down at Royal Hobart. I shot 8-under, but I don't know if that's still standing. I shot a 9-under at Darby Creek up in bloody Columbus, Ohio, which is a country course. I just went out there with a buddy and I ended up shooting 9-under, which was nice. But yeah, I couldn't tell you. I think I've got a few. Q. And given all the other goals that you guys play for out here, what does it mean to put your name on that sort of a record? No one has shot lower at this place. JASON DAY: Yeah, I would have loved to shoot 10-under and be the only guy to hold that record, but I'm in pretty good company with the guys that have shot that, especially with Greg Norman and the way he played shooting 63 and three straight 67s. If I can keep that up, that would be great to be able to shoot three 67s over the next three days, but right now I've just got to try and focus on trying to win this tournament and trying to play a good round 2. Q. Could you talk about how difficult the approach shot was on 7? The ball was beneath your feet. You were literally four or five feet from the water. Was it as difficult as it looked? JASON DAY: Yeah, it was. It's all contact. It was 120 yards to that pin. I was on a severe downslope out of the rough in the hazard. We were expecting it to fly about 10 yards because of obviously the rough, you're going to catch a flier there, so that brings it down to 110 yards, and then take another 10 paces off that for the bounce and roll on the greens. So we were really trying to hit 100 yards, and obviously I pulled it a little bit, but my main focus was trying to get good contact on the club, and once I got good contact on the club, I was just trying to yell at it to sit down. Not like it's going to listen anyways, but yeah, I was just trying to tell it to sit down and ended up pin high left and rolled into a nice spot there. Q. Because this is a course record, would you mind giving us the clubs off the tee and then the second shots or third shots if it was a par-5? JASON DAY: Yeah, I can be here all afternoon if you want me to. Q. 10, I hit a 2-iron, then had a wedge in my hand. Driver off 11, hit 4-iron just in the bunker. 12, hit 3-wood, wedge. 13 was 8-iron. 14, driver, 8-iron. Next hole was a 3-wood, 7-iron. Next hole was a driver, 8-iron into the par-5. Then a pitching wedge at 17. 2-iron, 5-iron into 18. Then I hit driver, wedge into the 1st. 3-wood left, 2-iron out to the right on the 2nd and had a nice little up-and-down there. 8-iron into 3. 3-wood, wedge into 4. Driver, 8-iron into 5. 2-iron, wedge into 6. 7 was a driver, wedge. 8 was a 4-iron because I didn't have a 3-iron, and a 2-iron was going to go too far, so I just kind of hit a lucky little rope draw there. And then 2-iron, 3-wood, and then a nice little up-and-down on the last. MARK WILLIAMS: Jason, we appreciate your time. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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