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THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT PRESENTED BY NATIONWIDE

June 2, 2016

Jason Day

Dublin, Ohio

Q. This is your best score in this tournament, 66.
JASON DAY: Really? I think I shot 65 one time.

Q. Maybe. I think it's two 67s.
JASON DAY: Oh, man. I probably shot 65 off the ladies tees the week before. Yeah, I feel good. It was -- I said earlier this week that I feel good about my game.

Today I hit nice from tee to green, gave myself opportunities on the greens and then also capitalized on those. I'm pleased because usually I come into this event and start pretty poorly, maybe put a little too much pressure on myself. It is my home course, and you want to play well, and you want to win this tournament because of Mr. Nicklaus and what he's done with the golf tournament and the golf course as well. A lot of history behind this.

But three more days to go.

Q. Is it hard to start that way and keep patient when you see 8 under on the board?
JASON DAY: He's 9. I'm sitting there 9 with two holes left. If you get on the green, they're good birdie opportunities on 17 and 18. I'm sitting there going, oh, man, I've got to be patient. I can't go out and just try and force things and chase things even though I alluded to it earlier in the week that I was going to try to play conservative, there's some tee shots that I did play a little bit more aggressive, but I was more comfortable on those shots. There's some tee shots that I pulled back and ended up making birdie, which was nice. Kept that momentum going.

Q. When you saw Johnson with that number, you had to make a conscious decision to not try to get up there? **?
JASON DAY: It was perfect scoring course conditions out there today. No wind. The greens were very receptive and the greens were rolling nice. They were perfect out there.

To be able to get off to a good start birdieing 1 and 3 was great. But once again, I just said to myself, I said, just be patient with yourself because you can easily play yourself out of the tournament if you don't give yourself the opportunities or get yourself into contention to have those opportunities.

Sometimes you can walk off this course scratching your head and go, I really didn't play that bad, and just put yourself out of position.

Mr. Nicklaus just told me earlier -- I think it was Wednesday -- or Tuesday. Just play within yourself. Being patient is key out here. When you see an 8 under, it's hard to be patient, but pleased.

Q. What's the difficulty for you at this event in the past? It's a home game so --
JASON DAY: I don't know, I just sucked. To be honest, I would love to go, yeah, this is it. I had distractions at home, or the course wasn't that great, or I had a bad draw, or whatever, but it's not. I just played terrible and kept on playing terrible for a good period of time.

Yeah, I mean, there's a little bit of added pressure with being home course. Everyone is expecting you to play well, and then my expectation of you have to play well as well.

But I said, if you just get a little bit too aggressive and get yourself out of position, it's difficult to make birdies. Even so, you can make mistakes.

The biggest thing for me talking about that is on 7, in the rough to the right, should have laid up, hit 3 wood instead. Got out of position, had to hit a flop shot over the bunker, and I made par. If I had laid up, at least I would have a chance of stopping the ball somewhere near the hole and giving myself a good opportunity of making birdie. I pushed a little bit too far there, and that's why you pay the price and a make par on an easy par 5.

Q. Jason, (inaudible) build momentum in the round?
JASON DAY: You see it all the time. My momentum is funny, though, because it -- it's a funny one, like James Hahn going on that stretch of missed cuts and then wins. And then there's another guy, Brian Stuard went on that run of missed cuts and then randomly wins.

Momentum can work both ways on days like this but also on weeks as well because you may have not won the week prior. You may have finished the top 25, but you know that things are coming around. You're starting to hit the ball a little bit better, and you're a little bit more confident going into the next week. And then all of a sudden, you feel a little bit better going into that week, and the course suits your eye, and then all of a sudden, you win.

So it's just, when it comes to at this level, it's more about how you control the upstairs and more than anything. Everyone has their technical things that they're trying to work on and their mental things they're trying to work on, but when it comes down to it, it's just really trying to you're playing within yourself, you're playing against yourself. You're playing against other guys, but you can't control what they're doing.

So the biggest thing is to really try and keep a positive attitude, and that's what keeps the momentum going your way.

Q. Guys are saying that it's as receptive as they've ever seen maybe. Does that even make it tougher not to be aggressive, play that patience game, because it's there for the taking?
JASON DAY: I can understand the way they want to control the moisture on the greens. It got very hot out there today. They've got a sub-air system. They can suck the moisture out if they want to. But we just -- it's very -- when you get the green speeds a little quicker, it's very easy to lose these greens if the heat stays the way it is, but it looks like it's going to kind of cool down. I understand why they're trying to control the moisture a little bit, but it is receptive out there, the most receptive I've probably seen in the first rounds here.

And the green speeds aren't crazy, but you'll probably gradually see it go a little bit harder and harder and harder as the week goes on, as long as we have good weather. But, you know, obviously the weekend looks like normal Ohio weather. So good stuff. Thanks.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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