Jason Day Looks Strong for The Masters After API Win
Jason Day had a 15th club in his bag at Bay Hill – Tiger Woods!
Jason Day leaves the Arnold Palmer Invitational as the 2016 champion and also as the player most likely to win the Masters, based on current form plus the x-factor of determination.
Day was brilliant for two days at Bay Hill, and then he was average for two days, scoring wise, but when it came time to hit the shots and make the putts at the end of the tournament, he did. That’s what separates champions from the rest.
“It was great to be able to be in contention, great to feel those competitive juices flowing, but I highly recommend winning by a couple more shots,” he said.
It was not an easy victory. In the final round, he lost the lead to competitors Kevin Chappell, Troy Merritt and Henrik Stenson, but he never gave up. He did what he said he would do. He stayed patient and waited for an opening. Although he bogeyed three holes on the front nine to fall out of the lead, Day kept fighting back, and made birdies at the 9th, 12th, as well as a pivotal one at the 17th.
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He also faced the added burden of playing with the lead every day. Even Tiger Woods never won wire-to-wire at Bay Hill.
Speaking of Woods, that was Day’s 15th club. Woods sent him texts of encouragement and has been giving him advice on how to get to the winner’s circle more often.
“It gives me so much confidence that a person like that would believe in me, especially as a kid I was idolizing him,” Day explained. “ Watching him in ’97, win at the Masters for the first time, and all of a sudden I’m playing the Tour, and I’m pretty close to him now.”
On Sunday, the text was: Just be yourself and stay in your world.
“For some reason when he sends the same stuff to me,’ just be yourself’ and ‘just be sure,’ I can finally concentrate,” Day added.
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After bogeying three holes on the front nine to fall out of the lead, Day kept fighting back even though he was under pressure and behind. What Day did was to pressure others after they pressured him, and the result was that the competition tried shots that they could not pull off on that day. Henrik Stenson came up short and in the water on the 16th, an unforced error. Troy Merritt had the same problem at 18. Kevin Chappell hit his tee shot on 18 into a tangle of rough right of the fairway, had to lay up and eventually bogeyed the hole.
“I made sure that even though the front side wasn’t good for me, and everyone saw it, don’t panic. Just be patient with yourself and when you get an opening, like I did on 17, make sure you take it,” he said.
The battle on the front nine, Day admitted, was in part mental, dealing with feelings he hasn’t experienced since he won the BMW.
“I didn’t feel comfortable over any shot out there today,” he said.
He admitted to media afterward that he was particularly nervous on his tee shot at the 18th, which he pushed into the right rough. However, unlike Chappell, he got lucky with the lie and made a decision to hit into the bunker beyond the green, relying on his sand game to get the par.
“My iron play was very, very poor over the weekend but one thing that helped a lot was my short game. I holed a lot of shots out this week, more so than I’ve ever done in my career,” he said. “It’s all that hard work that I’ve been putting in from the start of the season on my short game because I know that that’s one strength that I hold and, you know, if I have a good short game, it gives me a boost of confidence and gives me the confidence that I can go out there even when I don’t have my best stuff with my full game.”
Sure, Day won ugly, but in doing so, he followed other advice that Tiger Woods gave him.
“If it’s not going your way, suck it up and just get it done somehow, and that’s just a typical Tiger Woods comment,” Day added.
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The Arnold Palmer Invitational was Day’s 8th PGA Tour victory, his fifth victory since last July. Now it’s on to Austin and then Augusta National.