WGC DELL TECHNOLOGIES MATCH PLAY

March 23, 2023

Jason Day

Austin Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. When you look at your history in this event, obviously you've had some ups and some downs. Where does your mind go when you think about this event?

JASON DAY: Oh, I mean, that's a pretty open question. Is it to my performance or --

Q. Sure.

JASON DAY: It comes and goes as the days and who I'm playing against and all that stuff, as well. But I think the biggest thing is just trying to always keep yourself in it no matter what. You just never know what's going to happen.

Like today, for instance, Vic was playing some pretty solid golf on the back side. Just missed a couple putts coming in, and I got fortunate with one of his shots on 16. That's kind of how match play works.

It's interesting how you can play really good and just -- yesterday I played against Adam, he played great, and then I rattled six birdies off in a row, and it just -- you wake up different and you wake up feeling different every single day.

And then today I felt like I was just a club amateur. That's the way that I felt compared to yesterday, just because I had eight birdies, played flawless golf, didn't get myself in trouble at all, and then today I was just like very unprofessional in the way that my process was.

Obviously I'm not taking anything away from Vic when I say that about myself. Vic is a tremendous player, has been a good player for a long time, and I've known him and he's been a good friend of mine for a while.

Yeah, I think in match play, is one of those events where you've just got to keep yourself in it constantly and just hang around, hang around, hang around. And then if you have a good short game, if you're a good putter then you can have a good day like yesterday or you have a day like today and you're just grinding it out and kind of grind out a win.

Q. Is that why you think you've had success here?

JASON DAY: I think so. I just don't want to give anyone like a free one, like a free round.

What I mean by that is just always constantly just telling the person, showing the person that I'm there, that my presence is there. Sometimes you feel like you're kind of down and out, and then all of a sudden you just get like one break and you're off to the races again.

Then you kind of feed off what he's doing, where he's at. Like yesterday Adam was -- he started off with five birdies out of seven holes, so I knew that he wasn't going to cough up the lead. I had to like go and get it.

Whereas today it was just like I didn't have my best stuff, but I was just trying to grind it out and grind out that win.

Q. You've been in process mode for a couple years now trying to get that new swing, et cetera. Has this format allowed you to just play golf again and trust it a bit more?

JASON DAY: It hasn't allowed me, it's forced me to go out there and try and trust it more. I was with Chris last week, and we were working on the swing, working on actually new changes with the swing, and it feels drastically different to what I'm used to.

But yesterday I hit my second shot on 1, I hit it fat. I'm like, okay, I've got to go out and trust it now. It just kind of forced me to go out there and trust in what I'm trying to accomplish feel-wise in the swing, and then turned up yesterday, and today was a little bit of a different story.

Q. How hard is that to do in competition, especially when you've made a bunch of changes and you're making a few more?

JASON DAY: Yeah. It's difficult because you can see the end result and you know where the end result -- I shouldn't say end result. You know where you're heading towards because you're always constantly open to learning and slowly changing as time progresses.

But it's difficult because you've just got to trust your hand. I remember talking to Tiger about it all the time. Like how did you make the changes? He goes, I just trusted my hands out there, even though he changed his swing.

I said this about a month ago: It would be great to have the repetition and the swing changes cemented in nicely to go out and feel like you're playing like Rory where there's no -- it's just all target orientated.

It's like trying to hit ball flights, whereas I have to do it because I'm slowly handcuffing myself with certain positions in my swing that I am just not going to produce some of the shots that I want, so it's kind of forced me to try and do that under pressure.

But that's the only way to make change. You have to go out there and trust it and commit to it, and if it happens, great; if it doesn't, then you go back to the range and work on it again.

Q. You've always said you preferred the sudden death nature of match play. Essentially now you've got that. Destiny is in your own hands from here on out. Are you excited for the rest of the week?

JASON DAY: Yeah. It'll definitely feel like the old-school format, which is good. The intensity will be so much more than what it has been over the last two days, so that's exciting. I guess the willingness to grind it out is going to be more imperative to handle or take care of business tomorrow.

I'm just not really looking too far ahead. I know that -- you said before that I've just got to -- I'm talking about process. I've just got to stick to that process and try and take on every shot the best I can, and then at the end of the day if that's good enough to beat Collin, great; if not, then go back to the drawing board and get after it again.

Q. Will you miss this event, given your record?

JASON DAY: Yes. I don't even know my record, but yes, I will. Yeah, who knows, it might come back. I'm hoping it does come back because we have 49 events, whatever it is, on the schedule, and a lot of those are stroke play events and we have one team event.

It would be nice to keep match play around. It would be nice to be able to somehow tweak the format to where you could have more guys in on Saturday and Sunday or even more so just have nine-hole rounds and it's just like fire-rapid rounds. They could tweak the format different ways, but it would be nice to be able to keep the Match Play around just for the future.