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WGC DELL TECHNOLOGIES MATCH PLAYMarch 20, 2018Jason DayAustin, Texas MODERATOR: We'd like to welcome Jason Day. You're coming off a T-22 at Arnold Palmer, how does it feel coming into a place you won before? JASON DAY: It definitely feels good. I enjoy match play. I had some good form coming into this week. Obviously the T-22nd, I felt like I played a lot better than that. So it was something that I can build on, take all the good stuff from what happened last week to this week. And if I can do that, I've had good success here. I've got some tough competitors. I think everyone has tough competitors this week, because it doesn't matter who the favorite is. It's not like a tennis, per se, normally the high ranked seeds get through to the finals. But golf is a little bit of a different beast when it comes to that. So it's going to be windy. It's always windy here. The conditions of the actual golf course are nice and firm, so that actually plays into the hands of guys that have a good short game. And if you can kind of save yourself around the greens here, try and get on to the guy's nose a little bit who you're playing against and hopefully beat them in the end. MODERATOR: One of your playing partners will be Louis Oosthuizen, are you looking forward to playing him? JASON DAY: You know, I had to face someone. I wish I didn't have to face him. I know have known Louis for a long time now, because we've been on three or four Presidents Cup teams together. And he's a fun guy to be around. But obviously when it comings to match play, it's totally different. If we're playing in a normal tournament, we're talking to each other Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Sunday. When you get in contention on Sunday, usually you kind of quieten down. But when it comes to match play, it's a total different vibe and feel. You come straight in and you're facing that one guy. I always say that this is the easiest but -- easiest and hardest tournament to win, because obviously there's seven rounds, seven guys. That's all you have to beat is seven guys. You're not playing against the entire field. So if you can get past those seven guys and play some good golf and hit that peak coming into this event, you can definitely walk away with a W. On the other hand, everyone is tough and the competition is obviously getting higher and higher each and every year. And it seems like the competitors are getting younger and younger. So, yeah, with that being said, I'm looking forward to a tough week mentally and physically. And I'm going to grind out the best I can. Q. First of all, you had to exit early last year because of your mother. So let's find out first, how's mom? JASON DAY: She's good. I couldn't go to Mexico this year, she was coming home for some scans and I wanted to be there for her. She thought I was going to Mexico, but I made sure that I surprised her at the airport. For her to be able to -- she came back over. She had the scans done. We saw her docs. She's in remission, obviously. She has one and a half lungs left, which is a good thing. It's better than having none. Obviously I went through a bit of a struggle last year around this time because of my mother. It was very difficult because I was sitting in front of you guys actually in tears thinking about her. She's the reason why I'm the player I am today through her strict rule over the house, but also her work ethic is unbelievable. And it kind of transferred on through to me. And with her sacrifices that she made, I needed to make sure that everything was okay. And for her to be healthy and happy, I mean I'm pleased. Q. Good. Real quick, you've played this course a few times, last few years, is there a certain part of this course that presents a really fun challenge for you, is it a certain hole, is it a certain aspect of the hole, a certain part of the course? JASON DAY: I mean this whole -- Austin Country Club is an amazing match play golf course, just purely on the way the wind direction comes throughout the golf course. You can definitely drive it on the first hole. I did that a couple of years ago, I think. And going through the first stretch, the initial stretch is difficult, 2, 3 even 4. And then it turns around and you can go to another drivable par 4 which is great. Then you go to a par 5. So there's a lot of great scoring opportunities early on mixed in with some tough holes. But not until you get around 10, 11, 12, 13, that's when the scoring opportunities really happen. 10, it's like an iron off the tee, but you've got a wedge in your hand. 11, if you hit a great tee shot there, you can get away with birdie and then obviously the par 4 and par 5 where you can kind of make up ground or extend that lead, which is nice. The finishing holes, you know, 16, 17 and 18, I actually love 17. I think 17 is a neat little par-3. And fingers serious crossed that I have to go there. That would be great. But with that being said, I think the whole golf course sets up great for a match play venue. Q. Given what happened last year and that you weren't really here even though you were here, do you feel like a quasi-defending champion here? JASON DAY: No, unfortunately I'd like to have that back, but, no. I didn't even end up watching the tournament after what happened. But coming in the previous year and playing some great golf, especially coming off a win at Bay Hill, I'd like to say yes, but I'm not. And with that being said, I just -- I need to get back to that winner's circle, because I really enjoy this format. Q. Just if I can, match play tactics-wise, can you tell me your favorite tactics you've used and/or seen from other people used? JASON DAY: I don't want to tell you. I don't want to tell you (laughter). Q. How about somebody else's? JASON DAY: There was something really easy that you can do is, if you're down in the match and it's later in the match, always walk forward in front of the person that you're playing against, just so that you're letting them know that you're pushing forward and you're also letting them know that you're still hanging around. And you're not like -- because people feed off body language. If I'm looking across and the guy's is like, he's got his shoulders slumped and his head is down, you can tell he's getting frustrated, that's when you push a little bit harder. You've got to know when to push and kind of take it back in, because sometimes if you push too hard and they get a little bit angry with you, you can actually turn them into a good player because they can feed off that anger. And so the mental side of things is tough because you've got to kind of watch who you're playing against, feed off what their body language is doing and how they're playing and know when to take the risks and not take the risks. And an easy one is just being in front, if you're down in the match or even if you're in front of the match, always being in front. Q. What about you makes you a tough match play player, do you think? JASON DAY: I think I'm a bit of a pest on the golf course. I'm one of those guys that just -- I think the biggest example is I played Rory two years ago and he hit it so much better than me. I mean he should have won. But my short game -- I just knew, I said I'm just going to wear him out with my short game. I was hitting it everywhere. I wasn't hitting greens. I was clearly not hitting it as good and not as pretty as him. And I just said, you know what, it doesn't matter how it's going to happen, I'm just going to wear him out with my short game and annoy him. He was hitting shots to ten feet and missing putts. I was hitting them off the greens, up hills and under trees and stuff like that. So being able to get up and down and save pars, I think it slowly wore on him, and it to a certain degree frustrated him. That's the feeling I got. Finally, on the last hole, I had an opportunity to win. And fortunately, for myself, I was able to hole that 10-footer on the last hole. Q. Talk about where your short game is at at the moment. Last week at Bay Hill your proximity to the hole wasn't exactly where you wanted it? JASON DAY: With the short game? Q. Your short game kept you in the top-25? JASON DAY: Yeah, it's definitely not as good as Tiger's. Man, he had some good short game stuff last week. But my short game is there. My putting feels nice. The greens are rolling perfectly here. They're not as fast as last week, so you can be a little bit aggressive. But I understand because the wind is pretty strong and that whips through this area here. The short game is in good form. Hopefully I can take that in and try to frustrate more people. Q. I think I asked you this last year, I asked you if you get out and see Austin at all, you said you play video games and eat junk food, is that the same this year? JASON DAY: No, I'm at a hotel this year, so a lot of Netflix and eating junk food. Q. You've obviously been really good in this format, why will you win this week? What is it that can separate you this week? JASON DAY: Like I said, getting back to you only have to beat seven guys is key. And you're beating that person on the day. And some days you have to beat two guys. But I know that this week is very similar to what you feel in a major championship with regards to the heightened level of physical and mental toughness that you have to actually bring into each and every day. With the old format that we did have, you had to really bring it because if you lost, you're going home that day. Now with this round robin format, it gives you a bit of life, but most of the time if you lose, you kind of go on. I just look at it this way: I need to win every single match. If I win every single match, I get to the final, and who knows what happens. I kind of thrive off the stressful and hard situations more so than other guys. Q. Two years ago, when you were winning the tournament, you took over world No. 1 while you were here in Austin. So how much closer are you to that point in your game now than last year? JASON DAY: Yeah, I mean -- last year was a difficult year for me, obviously. It was hard for me to obviously be on the golf course at this point. But going through what I went through, being No. 1 for 51 weeks and kind of being a little burned out was tough for me. And I've reevaluated myself at the end of last year, kind of reset some new goals, trying to stick to the process goals and trying to improve each and every week. But like once again, it's about climbing that mountain again and trying to get back to the top. I said to my team at the end of last year, I said the goal is -- because obviously I got two new caddies who I share, my best mates. And I had a meeting with them and that was the first official meeting with them. I said, look, every tournament we go to, we go there to focus and go there to have a plan of winning that tournament and going to the next one and trying to win that one. And our plan, our ultimate goal is to get back to No. 1 in the world and that's that long-term goal. It may not happen this year, it may not happen next year, or it may happen this year. You never know how the runs happen or how the momentum changes in your game. This year I feel more hungry and motivated to get back to the top. There is a lot of tough competition there, but I feel like my game is really close, if I can just take in that proximity to the hole, give myself maybe one or two more looks on the greens, the way I'm putting it, because I'm leading strokes gained in putting, I think I'll be able to gain that back pretty quick. Q. You talked about the emotion, playing with emotion to beat your adversaries. And do you think that there is emotion that you can have sometime when you are close to win, like last week? JASON DAY: Yeah, yeah, definitely. It's funny, like people probably think I'm crazy, but sometimes when you come into a golf tournament, like last week, people probably thought I was crazy when they were driving past. I was screaming at top of my lungs inside my car by myself to try and hype myself up. Because sometimes you get to a point -- and I played with Tiger the first two rounds, and like my stress levels and the heightening of the mental game came up, and then it kind of started to go back down, because you come from such a high playing with Tiger in front of a lot of people. There's a lot of demand there. So Sunday comes around and I'm a little bit flat. So I'm in the car screaming at myself. You don't understand how loud I was, I was really loud screaming at myself, just trying to heighten the feeling of emotions and trying to get myself back up. Saying that, yes, you do, you do feel it. And it goes through the round, too. And I'm talking about momentum. You can actually feel that coming and going. So when it does happen, like it did at the start of my round on Sunday, I was 3-over very quickly. And I just -- I just need to stop panicking and try to hit a few more greens and just grind it out. I ended up not shooting the score I wanted to, but I ended up shooting even par in the end. That was a good kick in the butt coming into this week. Well, I just knew that if you -- if I let those three bogeys early in Sunday's round last week affect me, I could have shot over par and been 30th, 40th or 50th and that would have been a big disappointment with regards to how I actually played. And I said earlier that I played better than the actual finish. But the attitude that I had going into it after those bogeys, I was probably the most happy out of whole week because -- and this gets back to me being hungry and grinding to get back to No. 1. When you're trying to reach a goal, you don't let anything kind of anger you to a point, and you're just trying to push forward. Q. I've been asking everybody this question today. When you look at the players on Tour who are good match play golfers, in some cases they're good at everything and in some cases you know that they're significantly better at match play. People like that, can you point to a personality trait that they have in common? Is there something that you can see that's similar among those kind of players? JASON DAY: Who's won at last -- who is a good match play player, sorry? Throw out some names, so I can actually think about them. If you look at those guys, say Patrick Reed and Ian Poulter, mainly those guys particularly play better in the Ryder Cups, I think. I think they still play good -- granted I'm just saying that on pure, what I see on TV. I don't know what their record here is in the match play format. Poulter has played some decent golf in the match play here. But when you look at guys like that, I mean take Tiger, for instance, back in his day when he won it once or twice, something like that, you look at the traits of these people, I think they're willing to push themselves further than most people. And I'm talking mentally and physically. I think, though, they -- I think they feed off the situation that's going on around them because it literally is just me against you, kind of the format that you get. And I think they feed off that stressful situation. That's kind of -- the way I feel is that when I need to step up big, that I think my level of mental attitude just kind of lifts a little bit. I'm there and I'm just trying to focus a little bit harder. I know that you need to be clutch here and you need to hole a putt or you need to hit a great shot here. So the level of concentration goes up. But you can actually kind of see in the way their demeanor, the way they walk, the way they talk. But I wouldn't say guys -- you could be a short hitter and have the same. But I think it's more on the mental side. I think the guys that are mentally stronger are able to push themselves a little bit further. We all get to a point in the round that you don't want to push anymore. Like it could be the 7th round that you play on Sunday and you're like, you're 3-down, and I could just kind of cruise this in. Your mind and your body wants to tell you success just cruise it in. But something deep down inside is saying, no, you can't let that happen. You've got to keep pushing and kind of push through that barrier and see how far you can actually get out of yourself. And it's more of a test mentally and a challenge to see what you can put yourself up against. MODERATOR: Thank you for your time, Jason. Best of luck this week. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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