Jason Day speaks with media at the Presidents Cup Tuesday.
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We’ve all been looking at Jason Day a lot this year — the man earning more attention for his clothes than his play — but have you been listening to him? He’s sneakily been one of the best quotes in pro golf, not necessarily for unraveling info or clues about where the game is going, but leaving us with honesty about where he’s been. And we’ve all been better off because of it.
The world’s best golfers are repeatedly set in front of microphones after good rounds to speak about their birdie on the 14th, the ruling on the 7th, or simply what it was like playing in the same group as that Adam Scott 63. These sessions are rarely therapeutic. They’re more often treated as a dragging obligation, where the quicker and simpler one answers, the quicker it’ll be over and simpler it’ll be. (Is this due to the questions, or the frequency of these meetings? Perhaps.) But in the face of them Jason Day has been magnificent lately, treating them as opportunities to work through his thoughts. To not rush to the next question. To embrace follow-ups. To simply … share.
It harkens back to the Olympics, two months ago, when Day was representing Australia. He was overcome with emotion on the first day of the competition and was stunned how nervous he was looking down and seeing the colors on his chest.
“It’s amazing, we’re not playing for money this week obviously. We are playing for a medal and you’re here for kind of playing for free,” he said. “But my point is, is that like it feels totally different. This is the most I’ve felt nervous standing on a tee box wearing a set of clothes that I’m wearing for the first time.”
Day was learning something about himself in that moment and wasn’t afraid to tell the world about it. In return, we learned something about him we hadn’t known. This is the ultimate payoff of speaking with media — telling your story, adding layers of context to everything we know — and one that gets lost in the age of social media, where players can control the narrative of their careers to their liking. When it came to Day and the Olympics, we knew he missed out in 2021, and we knew he elected to not compete in 2016, citing concerns about the Zika virus. But did we know he regrets it?
“At the time, I think I was like No. 1 or 2 in the world,” Day said, “and I think I was like to a point where I was kind of burnt out, and the last thing on my mind was representing Australia in the Olympics.
“Looking back on it, I should’ve just sucked it up and gone down and played. I think in that case, it would have been a great experience for me to go down there and represent something that’s bigger than you.”
We don’t have to fawn like crazy over a golfer who is sharing his truth, but at its core this is a human just acknowledging a mistake. A change in opinion. In a world where flip-flopping is often regarded as sin, there might be room for us to embrace it a bit more. As time has gone by, Day’s eyes have widened, and his ego isn’t so big that he can’t mention it out loud.
This week, Day is competing in his fifth Presidents Cup, making him one of the most experienced players on the International side. Only Adam Scott and Hideki Matsuyama have played in more. And on Tuesday, he was pushed in front of the mic again, and responded by sharing more hindsight of his own Presidents Cup journey.
“I think in my younger day I didn’t really look towards the Presidents Cup as something that I wanted to play in because it’s such an individual sport, and I never really cared too much to play in the Presidents Cup because all I cared about was playing on the PGA Tour and trying to win,” Day said. “Obviously the Olympics kind of opened my eyes a little bit to know that it’s a little bit more than yourself. To be a part of the Presidents Cup team — look, if I play one match, I’m going to do the best I can. I’m just here for the team to try and support them the best I can. If they play me five times, then I’m ready to go five times. I don’t care how much it is.”
Why Day wasn’t able to lean all the way in to this bi-annual team event — where players are not competing for prize money nor individual accolades — certainly has to do with him. But if he can stroll down memory lane a bit, he felt like he was following the path paved by International teammates around him.
“Just think back when I first started out, I was pretty gung ho about it,” he said. “And I felt like there are some guys that just didn’t quite have the drive as much as some of the other guys. When not all working towards a goal, then it hurts.
“Then you fast forward to some of the other ones, I didn’t have as much drive as some of the other guys, and that kind of hurts the whole team environment. You’ve got to have all the guys pushing towards that goal of trying to win the Cup.”
This would hardly be the first time we’ve heard players admit to struggling to get hyped for a team match play event at the end of a long season of individual stroke play. But that it comes now, on the eve of that team match play event, sets the stage for Day’s entire week, and he didn’t have to volunteer that info.
Day continued elaborating the point, even citing the 2015 Cup, in Korea, as one that he wasn’t up for. You know, that Cup that was decided by the final match, where the Internationals very nearly won. Why is this information important, all these years later?
Because “I think that hurts the team environment,” Day said. “I can’t be there saying, Hey, these guys didn’t drive and I’m doing the exact same thing, come a couple years later.”
It’s pretty clear that Day plans on being a better Presidents Cupper moving forward. But as a result of sharing his journey with the Cup, we can all understand him better, too. On a macro level, whenever he becomes a captain, and on a micro level, when he reacts to his play this week. If he plays poorly, it will color his emotions even better. If he plays great and leads his team to an upset victory, there’s your Hollywood ending. Simply, fans will know him even better. And to keep the good vibes train chugging along, the questions he receives from media afterward will be even better. We can only hope the honesty tour continues then. It’s a very fun ride.
Sean Zak is a writer at GOLF Magazine and just published his first book, which follows his travels in Scotland during the most pivotal summer in the game’s history.
