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ARNOLD PALMER INVITATIONAL PRESENTED BY MASTERCARDMarch 17, 2017Jason DayOrlando, Florida Q. A round of 71 today. 3-under par for the tournament. What do you make of it so far? JASON DAY: It wasn't too bad. Obviously, the birdie on 11 was great. Obviously the eagle on 16 was great. I got a little lucky on the 18th hole. Every now and then you need some luck, which is great. A couple bogeys, really soft kind of bogeys, so try and tidy those up for the weekend would be nice. Q. You said yourself earlier in the week that the game isn't quite where you want it. Of course, it all came aligned here last year. When you see many of the shots like this here on 16, how close do you feel you are to getting back to that form? JASON DAY: Yeah, I had an 8-iron and just trying to go a little bit right. Hitting shots like that is the best feeling ever, which you understand. But it's the shots like on 18 where you go and scratch your head, because it kind of comes down to, even though over the last two days I felt like I've been able to hit three drives in the middle of the face, so, you know, it's coming along, I just got to just tidy up the driving, I think if I got myself more opportunities in the fairways, I can hit shots like that on 16 and that just frees me up to you know leash my putter a little bit. Q. You go from quite feeling that you're not quite on it, but you're still delivering solid rounds of golf. JASON DAY: Well, yeah, over the last two days I kind of got down on myself and I didn't do anything too crazy, I was patient. You see the front nine there, 4 and 6 you usually try and take advantage of. But they're very, you got to get your self a good drive away or it's tough to make birdies. I just kept on saying that it's not going to get too crazy, I just got to slowly creep my way up. Obviously 71 is great, but I got to get anything under par the next two days and see how it goes at the end of the week. Q. It's a special week to you. Last year, you had this wonderful opportunity to win this great event and of course the King was there. You said that it was one of the most special moments of your career, something you really wanted to do. How do you feel about that now and how does it feel coming back as defending champion and Arnie not being here? JASON DAY: Yeah, obviously you're watching the screen here and a very special moment. Obviously, my idol, Tiger, coming here and winning so many times, and such a special and big event for us to be able to play here each and every year. I feel like I play each and every year, too. And I just typically never had good finishes. And all of a sudden I was playing great golf and got off to a great start and then finishing strong. And being able to have that special moment with him after the round and have that drink with him, that's very special to me. Unfortunately, no one gets to do that anymore and I was the last person to ever have that drink with him. So, very intimate, very, I guess, in a way, a great experience to be able to sit there with the King for 25 minutes and just talk about life. Q. Assess your day out there. JASON DAY: I just am not quite clicking with the driver. Can't find the center of the face, unfortunately, and it's either, I'm using the whole face, which is fantastic, that's what you're supposed to do, I'm doing a great job of that, but unfortunately the center's gone missing and one real big factor with trying to control your ball and get it the right distance with the drives is center of contact and, unfortunately, I just haven't found it this week. So I got two more days, I feel like the swing's coming along, especially with the irons. I hit some nice shots coming in. And the putting feels good, the short game feels solid. Nice up-and-down on 17 and on 18. But I still got a lot of work to do, obviously Charley played a phenomenal round this morning, he's at 10-under, and there's a lot of good players that are trying to win the tournament. But once again, there's 36 holes and I'm seven back, so some patience is needed over the weekend, as the course looks like it looks like it's starting to slowly burn, you can see the footprints as you're walking on the fairways, which tells me we're going to get some nice heat over the next two days. And if that happens, then the course is going to be very dry, very firm, fast, and tough to hit fairways and you just got kind of survive on the weekend. Q. Outside of your driver, everything else okay or getting there? JASON DAY: Oh, yeah, yeah. It's frustrating, you want -- -when I'm firing and hitting my driver really good and hitting it straight, that's when I take control and give myself a lot of opportunities. And, unfortunately, I was talking to Martin out there today about it, walking down 18, I said, I just haven't been able to click all year with the driver. Some weeks it's great, some weeks it isn't. And when I'm hitting it great, then I'm usually, you're not putting that well. And he just said, look, once you put it together, then you're going to play really well. And, yeah, I feel like it's close, it just is a little bit, I think I'm attaching myself to the actual fact that I'm not quite hitting the center of the face and when you're attaching it, the problem gets a lot bigger than what it actually is, and when the problem gets bigger, then you think about it. And I just got just pump the brakes a little bit and not get too worried about it, know that I'm playing some decent golf, other than, if I could get some more drives on the fairway, that would be giving myself more opportunities. Q. Same driver or are you tinkering around at all? JASON DAY: I've been through a few drivers this year, just because I just haven't been too quite happy, I haven't been quite happy with the ball flight. But I finally have found, I married up a great shaft with a good driver head and when I hit it good it goes long and straight and when I don't it usually does that. But once again, I'll tighten that up a little bit and get it firing for the next few weeks. Q. Is that the only thing that needs to click to go low tomorrow? JASON DAY: I believe so, yeah. I think that, other than that, my iron swing feels good, my chipping my bunkers, my putting, all feels really solid. I just didn't hit it as close today as I would like to, but I started hitting -- the shots started getting a little bit closer as I came in today. But once again, this is the kind of course where you can't be too super aggressive. I think if you are a little bit too aggressive, you can make some big, big numbers. And I'm trying to stay away from that and give myself the opportunities. You got to have a mix of both. But if I can get the driver going, hopefully that will free me up a little bit and I don't have to think about it much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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