May 06, 2018: Jason Day may be known for his ability to launch golf balls into orbit, but it’s his performance with the shortest clubs that has him most excited about his game.
Day is in line to earn his second PGA TOUR win of the season after shooting 67 on Saturday at the Wells Fargo Championship. He made birdie on five of his final 10 holes Saturday to finish 54 holes at 10-under 203 (69-67-67). He’s two strokes ahead of Nick Watney, who’s seeking his first win since 2012.
Day has made just three bogeys, the second-fewest in the field, at a demanding Quail Hollow layout despite ranking 52nd in greens in regulation (33 of 54, 61 percent).
He leads the field in Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green and is 11th in Strokes Gained: Putting. He’s also perfect out of the sand this week, getting up-and-down all 12 times he’s been in a bunker.
“It gives you all the confidence in the world sometimes,” Day said about his short game. “It doesn’t matter how bad you hit it, you know that in the back of your mind that you’re going to walk off with par.”
“I’d much rather have a great short game than be the best ball-striker on the planet.”
Day leads the field in Strokes Gained: Putting this season (+1.386), just as he did during his three-win season of 2016. He fell to 39th in the statistic last season.
This is just Day’s third appearance in this event, but he fell in love with the course at last year’s PGA Championship, where he finished ninth despite a quadruple-bogey on the 54th hole. Day loves hard courses, and his short game can help him grind out pars on such tracks.
That aspect of his game has been especially important this week as he continues to break in a new set of irons. He won this year’s Farmers Insurance Open with his old set, but switched to new irons at Augusta National because he felt like they were causing his shots to fly too high and with too much spin. He is using a mixed set with TaylorMade’s P790s in the long irons and P730s in the mid- and short-irons.
Day also said his desire has returned after going winless last season. He had won nine times in the previous three seasons and reached No. 1 in the world ranking, but the demands of his lofty position in the game and his mother’s cancer diagnosis, led to burn-out.
A win would lift Day as high as No. 2 in the FedExCup standings entering THE PLAYERS Championship, which he won two years ago. He’s currently 16th in the standings after his win at Torrey Pines and runner-up at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. His 22nd-place finish at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard is his worst finish in six individual stroke-play events this season.
“If you get up and you kind of don’t really want it and don’t have the motivation to improve and get better as a person and as a player, then it’s a real struggle to come out and beat the best players in the world,” Day said. “This year I’ve kind of recommitted myself to try to get back to No. 1.”
WOODS BREAKS PAR
Tiger Woods shot 68 on Saturday, his first sub-par round of the week. He will enter the final round in 31st place, nine shots behind Jason Day.
Woods made six birdies, but also had three bogeys, including a three-putt on the 18th green. He still gained strokes on the green (+0.55) for the first time this week.
“My ball-striking’s been fine. I just haven’t made anything,” Woods said as his first PLAYERS Championship since 2015 approaches. He won at TPC Sawgrass in both 2001 and 2013.
Sean Martin on PGA TOUR
