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U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP 2017

June 16, 2017

Jason Day

Erin, Wisconsin

Q. What's made you the most frustrated about the last couple of days?
JASON DAY: Yeah, to be honest, I said yesterday it's been the best preparation going into a major, I felt like, in my career, which is playing in majors and knowing what I needed to do to prep for a tournament such as this. And unfortunately I just -- I got off to a great start yesterday, I birdied the first hole -- or no, sorry. Yeah, birdied the first hole. Yeah, I was in the hay too much over the last couple of days. Actually the stats yesterday, I think I hit like 12 greens, but I made two triples amongst that. Short game, I made zero of six up-and-downs.

It's pretty frustrating when I got here Friday, put a lot of work in -- not a lot, but I tried to pace myself. I did the work, looked at the golf course, made sure that I could actually play and visualize the golf course. And I felt the most calm I have in a major in a long time this week. And just unfortunately this didn't pan out.

Q. You said you wanted the course to play tough this week. How much of it was the course and how much of it was you just not executing what you wanted to do?
JASON DAY: Oh, I would say it's execution, I think. The biggest thing about this course is that the fairways are massive. But when you're visually looking down the fairway, I think when you're trying to aim at a target usually at a normal golf course, with normal width fairways, there's some pressure into hitting the fairway, because it is a lot narrower than we have out here. And I think with everything so large, your target is larger and your misses get even more extreme. Being out of position off the tee does not help. The execution was not there.

I usually love places like this. I enjoyed the walk. The walk was great (laughter). The golf course is actually really beautiful. And I just unfortunately just didn't execute.

Q. On a day like today, was it a struggle to keep your concentration?
JASON DAY: Yeah, I woke up this morning pretty tired. It was a quick turnaround. In the end I probably shouldn't have gone and hit balls last night, because I came out a little sluggish this morning, just quite -- I wasn't quite on. I'm already fighting an uphill battle what I shot yesterday, knowing I had to shoot something very, very low to get myself back in the tournament. Right now the wind is dying down and it's going to be easier for the guys in the afternoon, teeing off right now.

Yeah, I don't know what else to say.

Q. Did you and Rory console each other a little bit?
JASON DAY: Yeah, we were. Rory kind of showed up the last six holes. He flushed it coming in. And unfortunately he just missed a couple of putts out there. It's very easy to see how explosive he can get because he hits it pretty good. Always -- I knew I was kind of out of it. So I was trying to stay out of the way of Rory. And unfortunately with where I was hitting it, I wasn't in the way (laughter).

Q. Do you know why so many of the top ranked guys would be struggling? This will be the first time that the top 3 in the world may miss the cut.
JASON DAY: Let's hope that Dustin makes the cut. I don't know, I mean the scores are out there. If you hit the fairways, the scores are out there. You can shoot low numbers here. Yes, there are some long holes mixed in with some shorter ones, but actually it's playing pretty fair. If you hit good shots down the middle -- I watched Rory the last six holes, and he had a birdie putt and I think the longest putt he had was maybe 11, 12 feet, something like that.

It's definitely out there if you can get yourself on the fairways. The fairways are wide. Myself and Rory, we didn't quite have the greatest tee game yesterday and it showed in the scores.

Q. Would you have been better off with narrower-looking fairways, the visual of it?
JASON DAY: Even though this is a links golf course, it's more American links. I've typically struggled in the past with links golf courses. To be honest, I don't know. I think -- yeah, I'd play really good out of the northeast wind, long fairways, heavy rough. Everyone is grinding.

And I think at the start of yesterday when Rickie shot 7-under, usually that's not the case in most U.S. Opens. Usually it's 3, maybe 4-under. Okay. You've just got to kind of take it easy. But when you see someone that shoots 7-under and the guys in the morning tear up the golf course, I've got to try to be a little bit aggressive. But then again you sit there and it's the U.S. Open, things can turn pretty bad, which they did for me.

I'll take it either way. Obviously I'm not here on the weekend, so it's unfortunate. But at least I'll get to sit in air con and watch the guys tear it up on the weekend.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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