Jason Day Says THE PLAYERS Is Toughest Field of Year
Jason Day has a clear plan mapped out for conquering TPC Sawgrass this week.
Jason Day has a specific take on this week’s challenge. He wants to win, and he has a plan.
One reason winning the THE PLAYERS is such an accomplishment is because of the strength of the field. Another is the difficulty of the golf course.
“As a whole, this tournament, I mean, this is the toughest field we have all year. It’s a big event. It’s getting bigger and bigger every time I come back. And you can visually see it, not only feel it,” he said to media.
Add to that an extremely challenging golf course, and it’s hard to believe that anyone wouldn’t consider the tournament a major.
“This golf course tests every aspect of your game. And it’s a good test to see – if you win this, you’re amongst some of the – well, a lot of the greats in the game,” he noted. “It would be an absolute honor to be able to put my name there, and to be able to walk underneath from the locker room past the caddie hut there underneath in the basement there, to be able to see my picture up on the wall, because I don’t want to walk through there during my career and not be able to see my picture up there at least once.”
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Like many accomplished golfers, Jason Day has struggled in the past with missed cuts at THE PLAYERS and he is looking to change that this week. His best finish was 19th in 2013, and his PLAYERS resume includes many missed cuts. He’d love to win it, but he just hasn’t had success at this course yet. However, he did win on a very mean, Pete Dye golf course at Whistling Straits last year. So there’s hope.
“Obviously I haven’t had the greatest finishes here at The Players Championship, but with that said, I feel a lot more prepared this year than I ever have in my career coming into this event. So I’m hoping that is a little bit of a different result this year,” he said to media.
He upped his practice schedule starting on Friday of last week, and then did the same Saturday. He arrived in Ponte Vedra on Monday and played nine holes and practiced more.
Jason Day has looked at his stats on the TPC Sawgrass course and done his homework.
“This course, it’s a difficult golf course in regards that, for me, not so much trying to hit the driver off the tee, but there’s a few 3-woods out there for me that I have to hit, and if there’s one club in the bag that’s uncomfortable for me at times, it’s the 3-wood,” he explained. “That’s why I might be hitting a few more 2-irons off the tee this week, just to try and get it in play, so that I can hit the fairways and try and get it on the green and give myself an opportunity at birdie.”
Unfortunately, he’s not as comfortable with his 3-wood as with the rest of the clubs in his bag.
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“Everyone has an uncomfortable club in their bag. We just don’t talk about it,” Day admitted. “I think that, yeah, 3-wood has always been, ever since I was a kid, I’ve always kind of I’ve overdone a draw on my 3-wood too much. Driver has always been fine and the rest of the clubs have been fine. It’s just for some reason the 3-wood, and that’s just one of those clubs.”
So where will he hit the club he doesn’t like as much as he does his other clubs?
According to Jason Day, the first two holes are 3-wood, as is the 4th. Five becomes 3-wood if the wind is behind him. Seven is a driver or 3-wood. The 10th is 3-wood.
He may hit driver on the 5th, depending on the wind. The 7th is a driver, and so is the 11th, as well as the 14th, 15th, 16th and 18th.
On the last hole, he has options.
“I could possibly hit driver or I could hit 2-iron. 3-wood is just an awkward shot there because you’re still bringing in the trouble on 18 up the right side, whereas if you hit 2-iron you can lay it back,” he explained.
The 12th is a 2-iron, and the 6th is an iron. Both are short par fours, drivable for part of the field. However, the greens are small enough and have enough trouble nearby that most do not try to drive them, at least not in competition.
So the question is, if Jason Day doesn’t use his driver on most of the holes, particularly on the front nine, how far does his 3-wood go, and how far does his 2-iron go?
“My 2-iron goes about, depending on heat and the firmness of the fairways, I usually carry my 2-iron about 250 yards off the tee and then it runs another whatever it does on the fairway, how firm it is,” he said. “Then the 3-wood goes about 285 yards off the tee. So there’s a big difference in gap, so there’s at least 30 yards. That’s three clubs. That is a big difference, but I have to weigh out between hitting an iron or 3-wood just because if I miss it in the rough, you’re going to get fliers out of here, and if you get fliers out of the rough it’s very difficult to hold the greens. And then if you miss the greens then it’s very difficult to try and get up-and-down because of the uncertainty of the lies that you can get around these greens in Bermudagrass.”
He added that he wished the course was still over-seeded turf because that would be easier to play from if he missed a fairway or a green. The Bermuda grass, he said, is more challenging. But it should be if it’s the top tournament on the PGA TOUR.
For Jason Day, the front nine plays easier than the back, and if he can get through the stretch of 13-15 in even par, he believes he will be able to make enough birdies on the rest of the holes to be competitive.
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“I’ve just got to somehow change that way of thinking about this golf course and just try and go out there and execute the game plan,” he said. “It’s a golf tournament that you really do want to win and have it on your resume at the end of your career because it’s such a huge event. This is one of those tournaments where, if you’re on the border of getting into the Hall of Fame, this could kick it over and get you into the Hall of Fame.”