TRAVELERS CHAMPIONSHIP

June 26, 2021

Jason Day

TPC River Highlands

Quick Quotes

Q. Were you struggling a little bit out there? The body, was it a little sick? What's going on?

JASON DAY: I'm just stiff. I had allergies out there, too, so that wasn't good. I was on 14 and I needed some eyedrops and Bubba pulled them out of his pocket, so that was nice.

But, yeah, just a little stiff. It's fine. It is what it is. I was just saying before it's not stopping me from hitting some good golf shots, which is nice. The biggest thing today was the wind was pretty hefty out there and the green speed caught me off guard. They were a little bit slower.

Blew one past on 7, and then from then I couldn't -- really couldn't get it to the hole. Took me a while to adjust, and after that I couldn't hole the 10- to 15-footers.

Q. Rickie was saying missing the last couple majors maybe spurred him on a little bit.

JASON DAY: Right.

Q. Was that the case with you at all?

JASON DAY: I think obviously I wanted to be at the U.S. Open. I mean, it was nice to be at home with the birth of my son, you know, just spending quality time. Obviously I wanted to be there.

It was killing me to watch the U.S. Open sitting at home. I said that to my wife. I'm just trying to slowly work my way back to where I need to be. Right now I feel where I'm at world ranking-wise, I just needed to go and take some time off and just try and get my game back to where it should be.

I'm just slowly stepping in the right direction. Like things are progressing nicely.

Q. As far as the back goes, is there a light at the end of the tunnel that it might become pain-free soon? What's the prognosis?

JASON DAY: Yeah, that's its biggest thing is that it doesn't feel -- before this hiccup that I had at Memorial, I felt bulletproof, 100%, like I never had a back pain in my life.

I was just doing exercise and unfortunately tweaked it, and hadn't had time -- in the middle of the season you don't have time to kind of get it ready. I'm not 21 anymore, so it doesn't recover like it used to. I'm really high on the FedEx, so got to try and do something to get myself into the Playoffs.

Definitely got to try and do something to get myself inside the top 50 so I can get back into the majors. It's a pretty critical time for me. It's just hard to have an injury like this or not even an injury, but have a stiff back knowing that I have to go out and play.

So I just got to suck it up and just do it.

Q. But it's not going to get worse?

JASON DAY: No, no, now. It's not going to get worse. It's nothing structural. It's just stiff, tight, and if I move side to side, it hurts.

But just got to deal with it.

Q. Not sure if you've seen the leaderboard since you came off, but there are 16 guys in the lead or within three shots of the lead.

JASON DAY: Right.

Q. On a golf course that has given up some really low scores, the wind comes down, how does that change your approach to what you're going to look to do tomorrow?

JASON DAY: I don't think it's going to change too much due to the fact we'll have pretty similar conditions that we had today.

So I think it's more about just giving yourself the opportunities, and it's crucial to have a good back side tomorrow. If you can hole the 10- to 15-footers out there tomorrow, someone from three, four back could win this.

I feel like this tournament yields a lot of winners that way as well. So you kind of off early, you don't get most of the crowds, you don't have a lot of expectations, you go out and play well.

Yeah, I mean, it's going to be tough. You got to be patient and just try and hole the 10- to 15-footers.

Q. For you going out there tomorrow is it going to be more of a physical thing or a mental thing?

JASON DAY: Yeah, I think it's -- I'm just going to see where I'm at. Obviously in among the leaders. I'm not going to try and change the game plan too much. Like I said before, the stiffness is not stopping me from hitting good golf shots.

I'm hitting a lot of good quality golf shots. I just didn't capitalize only the opportunities that I had today, which I did the first two days. Hopefully they start falling in tomorrow.

Q. Are you starting to feel like your putting stroke is getting back to where you like it?

JASON DAY: Yeah, today wasn't where it needs to be. First two days, yes. Today was off balance with the speed. Like I said, I three-putted 7 and kind of had a really good opportunity. I actually lipped a putt out for birdie.

But then with the greens speed just a little bit slower I just couldn't get -- it took me that adjustment period. So just try and work on a little bit tomorrow, and knowing that the greens aren't going to be as crazy fast as they were the first two days.

Q. Even with a bad putting day though you feel like you're feeling better about it?

JASON DAY: Man, I'm one shot back, you know what I mean, which is nice. So I'm excited to be where I'm at.