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THE HERITAGE

April 20, 2011

Jason Day

HILTON HEAD, SOUTH CAROLINA

MARK STEVENS: I'd like to welcome Jason Day. Jason, you had the week off last week after T-2 at the Masters. This will be your first start here at the Heritage. Talk about the course and what your off week was like.
JASON DAY: This is my third time.
The course is in fantastic shape. I think it's the best I've seen the course in two or three years that I've been coming. Yeah, it's obviously in the best shape. Unfortunately we haven't found a title sponsor yet and hopefully we can get some good play this week and hopefully we can pick up a sponsor. It's unfortunate that we can't find someone. But this is such a great course. So one of the only old-school courses that you see on the PGA TOUR these days. It would be sad to see this tournament go, because the fans here are great. It's always good to come back.
MARK STEVENS: A little bit about your off-week.
JASON DAY: I had Monday through Wednesday off. I had to do an outing on Thursday, had another outing Saturday and flew here on Sunday. I haven't had actually time to decompress as of yet. But it's been a roll straight after The Masters, a lot of media to do last week. I tried to relax as good as I could.

Q. What's your take away from the time, your reflection, what do you take away from Augusta?
JASON DAY: I think the biggest thing that I can take away from it is how important preparation is coming into an event. It was my first Masters experience, but I felt like I prepared as best I could.
I was saying out on the course today, when you come into a tournament, I feel like it's all about preparation, exactly where you need to place the ball, knowing that your body is working great. Just a number of little things that key together to make the week go great.
So I think the biggest thing was that. Obviously I don't handle my nerves really well the last day, and obviously throughout the week. But I was happy with how I handled my mental game out there.

Q. You said on Sunday that you didn't think you could have done anything else, to do what you did, do you still feel the same way?
JASON DAY: I do. I really do. Obviously I was nervous, you know, starting out on the final day there. But I just knew if I hung around, just hang around, I would come close. And obviously if I didn't birdie the last two holes, I still would have played great, I still would have finished 10-under, and would have played great for the week, but to finish the way I did, you know, I really -- just thinking about birdieing the last four holes, I couldn't have done it any better.

Q. You talked about how you handled your nerves. It was really impressive, considering it was your first time at Augusta. Was there something that you did differently? What was going through your head?
JASON DAY: Yeah, I started carrying a yardage book. I never used to carry a yardage book over the three years on Tour, this is my fourth year. I let Cole do the yardages, but getting back to the preparation, I'd go around to each hole, especially in the practice rounds and I'd sit down and say for these pins I'd hit it here. I knew exactly every time I stood up on the green or tee or fairway, I knew exactly where I needed to hit it.
Pretty much from there I went on playing the final rounds I knew exactly where I needed to hit it to give myself the best possible chance for the putt. Giving 100 percent and just focusing on trying to place my ball where I needed to. And just focusing on that alone was pretty much, just took away the anxiety. I didn't focus on anything else at all.

Q. How many guys don't carry yardage books?
JASON DAY: I don't know. I think the younger guys really don't carry yardage books these days. But there's a lot of -- you look at the old school guys I think carry yardage books more.

Q. Just don't trust Cole?
JASON DAY: No, not anymore. He gave me a few missed yardages out there (laughing). No, he's great. He really is. He double checks, triple checks courses every week. This is our fourth year on Tour, he does the courses every year. He does the ups and downs, and he's always on top of things. For me, like obviously I started working with Neale Smith, a golf coach, and he felt I needed structure on the golf course. I needed the plan. The plan was to have a yardage book, and with that it would help me play better. And it did.

Q. Did you work on that in the off-season?
JASON DAY: No, actually worked with him after LA. My first week with him was Tucson.

Q. This year?
JASON DAY: Yeah, this year.

Q. Had you worked with a mental coach before?
JASON DAY: See, the thing is I worked with -- I've been working on my swing for six to eight years, worked on my body to ten years, and I've been working on it since LA. So the experience compared to my technical and the physical side is very low. So I've got to try to keep on building on that.

Q. I know Rory talked about how he handled the final round. The last two Majors you've gone in the final round with a chance to win. Is that a learning experience? How do you take the bits and pieces that will help you out of that?
JASON DAY: Well, Rory came back the next week and he won. He's going to win a lot of Majors and he's going to win a lot of golf tournaments. As long as you're learning something, whether you made a bad choice or a bad decision on the tee shot or you just didn't putt as well as you'd like to, as long as you're learning something that day, whether it's the Thursday of a Major or whether it was the last day of a Major, bad experiences obviously you learn the most. He's going to learn a lot out of The Masters, and obviously a lot -- he's played wonderful golf in Majors. But as long as you're learning something.

Q. You closed really strong here last year, how do you feel about this course as far as a place where you might be able to contend or win?
JASON DAY: Obviously I hit a long ways, so that's pretty much out of the picture here. You have to position your ball well on the fairway to position your ball well on the green. The greens are small around here. Some places you have to hit to the middle of the green and you'll have 15, maybe 20 feet at the most, if you hit the middle of the greens. So I think a lot of it is to pick the shots that you need to hit off tee, sometimes you can't take driver, but you juggle the risk-reward. And right now there's not many drivers on my game plan. Probably maybe one or two drivers.

Q. Is that something you've gotten more comfortable with as you've played more rounds here, with six rounds, tournament rounds?
JASON DAY: Yes, definitely. Because as the years go on and I play this course a lot more, you just learn to do things. There's a few drives that I took where I should have hit 3-iron off the tee. As the years go on you get smarter with age, I think.

Q. I know Aaron and Peter Lonard who both won here, Aussies, said this course reminded them of Australian golf, do you get that?
JASON DAY: Yes, definitely. It's a great golf course. There's a lot of old-school golf courses in Australia, like you play the Royal Queensland. All the royal golf courses back home are very, very similar to this golf course. The old school, you know, you have to position, you have to draw it, fade your ball a lot, you have to work your ball. And I think the new modern courses kind of go away from that. It's all about hitting -- the bunkers these days are at 285, 290. Obviously it does remind me of some of the golf courses back home.

Q. There's been a lot of talk earlier this year about sort of a generational shift on the Tour to younger players. Do you look at it as a generational thing at all, do you feel like you're part of a new wave?
JASON DAY: I think the golfers are getting better, better with age, as the years go on. It's just funny how golf is evolving into a really, really big sport. I was just talking about this at the Masters, there's so many young players up there, as well. Even last week, Brendan Steele won, he's 26, 28, something like that. So obviously with the college system over here, here we're playing against stronger fields, even now on the PGA TOUR we're playing a stronger field. It's a little bit of the mental approach. You see a guy you played in college with and he's playing, and you think, I've beaten him, why can't I win? So it's a little bit of that, as well.
Obviously this next generation is going to be very, very tough.
MARK STEVENS: Thanks a lot and good luck this week.

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