Three weeks ago, Jason Day’s game looked lost and he looked miserable. That’s no longer the case.
The 2015 PGA champion arrived at TPC Harding Park for the 2020 PGA Championship fresh off three consecutive top-10 finishes, feeling like he could contend this week at a tournament that normally sees his best golf.
That was indeed the case Thursday as the Australian went out early and carded a bogey-free 5-under-par 65 at TPC Harding Park to take an early lead before the afternoon wave teed off.
Day’s game was polished from the opening tee shot, showing the progress he’s made over the last three weeks was no fluke.
“Yeah, so there was definitely a lot of momentum coming in off the previous finishes that I’ve had, three top 10s, which has been nice,” Day said following his round. “The game feels like it's coming around. I'm pleased with it.
“I'm not like excited -- I shouldn't say I'm not excited. I am excited to come out and play every day, but I know that I can improve, and mainly my putting can improve a little bit more. I feel like I've been working very hard in the off-weeks and especially when I come to a tournament to be able to get my putting back to where it is because it's always been a strength of mine. I feel like the game is slowly coming around, the confidence is coming around because I’m starting to see the results, which has been good.”
Day opened his round with a birdie at the Par-5 10th hole. After six straight pars, he hit a towering approach shot on the Par-3 17th that landed softly on the green, bounced twice and settled two feet away from the hole, leading to tap-in birdie.
The 32-year-old followed that up with birdies on No. 1 and No. 5 to get to 4-under and share the lead with a host of players.
After three straight pars, Day finished his morning with masterclass on how to play the Par-4 ninth hole, one of the toughest on the course.
Day drove his tee shot 309 yards down the left fairway. Wanting to create some momentum going into the second round, Day struck his approach shot beautifully from 211 yards out. The ball landed 6 yards short of the hole, bounced twice and rolled to within five feet of the cup, giving Day a birdie to cap off a flawless opening round.
Finally feeling like himself again, Day is looking forward to a weekend he hopes ends with his second PGA Championship win.
“Once again, I finally had enough of feeling sorry for myself, and it's easy to do that in this game because it is so mentally tough,” Day said. “You can start blaming everything else but yourself. Sometimes you've just got to pull your pants up and just move on, you know?
“I feel like the momentum that I've had over the last three starts has kind of seeped into this week. I'm excited about -- the funny thing is that every day I'm excited to go back to the golf course and play, whereas before I was struggling to get up and going, ‘Oh, do I want to kind of put myself through this again?’ To be honest, I'm excited to get out and play every week now.”
