THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

March 14, 2024

Jason Day

TPC Sawgrass

Quick Quotes

Q. Five birdies, no bogeys, always a good day at Sawgrass.

JASON DAY: Yeah, I mean, it's great. A bit of a dramatic difference between my hitting from last week to this week. Obviously it's only the first day, but felt like I did a lot of good quality work with Chris at the start of the week. Drove it nice. I think that's probably one of the most crucial things is to drive it well here. Even though it's not like overly long, getting it in the fairway is important.

It was nice to be able to capitalize on the par-5s today, keep the 5s off the scorecard and birdie those.

Q. You worked with Chris here Monday or Tuesday --

JASON DAY: Yeah, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

Q. How many hours did you guys put in?

JASON DAY: Tough to tell, but he was pretty much with me the majority of the time, so I played nine holes Tuesday and Wednesday and he was kind of in and out of those holes, but we were together before -- like the practice rounds and after, as well. Then on Monday we put a massive session in on Monday. It was a good chunk of hours there. Might have been three, four hours, something like that.

Q. How unusual is that, to have that much extended time with him? I know you guys are in contact a lot, texting and so forth, but to have it that concentrated.

JASON DAY: Yeah, I know he has different players as well as myself, so he has to kind of balance that out. But I haven't seen him -- I think I saw him like once in LA, but I didn't see him -- I typically don't like to work during the weeks that I'm playing, and I hit it awful last week, and I didn't know what was going on. I lost a lot of confidence in my hitting. My targets were way too large. We had a two-way miss going on. When that happens, it's hard to commit to any type of shot.

Just tried to work on some of the technical stuff that we've been trying to get into over like the last six months. That's difficult because I've got to teeter on the edge of being a little bit too sore in my back and -- you know what I mean? I've got to really kind of find a good balance there. I feel like I found a nice balance.

It was a little bit sore this morning, but then as the round progressed, it loosened up and it was totally fine.

Q. Do you have any kind of an advantage because you already know what it takes to win here?

JASON DAY: Unfortunately I'd like to say yes, but unfortunately no. It's one of those golf courses where previously, before I won the event, I didn't have a lot of great results. Then I won the event, and since then I've had some decent finishes.

Granted, we went from May to March, so that was a bit of a change, too. The style of the golf course we used to play in May was totally different compared to now. I hit a lot more drivers off the tees. It's a lot more important to hit -- super important to hit fairways now, whereas before you'd miss a fairway you'd be like, it's not too bad, I can run something up, and it's no problem. Things play a little bit softer now and they're very thick out of the rough. So yeah, the style of game is different.

Q. What do you have to do for your back now? Do you have to ice it or give it heat?

JASON DAY: Like today or --

Q. Are we making it worse talking to you?

JASON DAY: No. I mean, like every day I'll have -- there's hiccups along the way. Obviously from where I was to where I am now is a dramatic difference. Like it's a long way from where I was. I cold plunge, sauna and cold plunge every morning, and I'll probably cold plunge today just to stay on top of it. I'll see my trainer, as well.

There's probably a good -- anywhere between a good two to three hours of body work a day that I have to put into it.

Q. Did you like the grass better in May or in March?

JASON DAY: I like this type of grass, but I like the way that the golf course used to play in May, just because I could hit like this hard 2-iron, driving iron, never miss a fairway, but it would go forever. I felt like my short game was good enough to take over if I got out of position.

But I definitely like the playability of this type of surface. I don't know. I go back and forth. I'll let you know at the end of the week.