Day in danger after day one; Rahm stays steady at 2-under
COVER PHOTO: Jason Day watches his 32-foot birdie on par-4, No. 18 miss by a foot but would save the par from there. Picture by Andy Evans/Columbus Wired.
Beloved central Ohio transplant Jason Day has been playing some really good golf lately. The world’s No. 22 golfer and fifth-ranked player in the FedEx Cup standings has won one event this year and finished in the Top-10 six times. The win came three weeks ago in the AT&T Byron Nelson tournament that snagged him a cool $1.7 million and 500 FedEx Cup points.
The last time Day was ranked as high as he is now in the Official World Golf Rankings was mid-August of 2019 and the last time he was ranked in the Top-10 of the FedEx Cup was nearly a year before that at No. 6.
However, it has been a little bit of a roller coaster since finishing tied-for fifth in the WGC Dell Technologies Match Play event in late March. Two weeks later, he made the cut at the Masters but finished tied-for 39th then missed the cut a month ago at the Wells Fargo Championship. One week later, he notched his 13th career PGA Tour victory at the Byron Nelson.
The next week, another missed cut at the PGA Championship at Oak Hill. And things didn’t necessarily go his way after the first round of the 48th annual Memorial Tournament as he ended with a four-over par, 76. As of this writing, that puts him tied-for 88th and below the cut line.
He said he drove it nicely but the rest of his game fell flat.
“(I) didn’t hit a lot of good iron shots (and) then (my) short game was very scrappy. Putting was really bad,” Day said.
As one of the morning groups starting on No. 10, Day began his round well enough with seven straight pars. However, on par-4, No. 17, after landing his second shot on the green from the right fairway, he pushed his birdie putt from 20 feet out four feet past the hole. Then he came up 10 inches short on his par putt and settled for his first bogey of the day.
The second nine was even less favorable as he started favorably with a birdie on No. 1, but followed it up with four bogeys. He said starting in the afternoon tomorrow might help him if he can pull in the reigns a little bit.
“Yeah (the weather) should firm it out a little bit more. I got to be patient with myself. I didn’t make many birdies today so hopefully (I’ll) make those up tomorrow.”
Jon Rahm, who was grouped with Day, sprinkled his round with four birdies and two bogeys to come in at 2-under, 70, which as of this writing is tied-for eighth.
The world’s second-ranked golfer said he was pleased with his performance even though he wasn’t able to take complete advantage of the conditions.
“There was no wind, great temperature, perfect greens and I gave myself chances and couldn’t convert a couple of them.”
He said a couple of tee shots he hit, especially on par-5 nos. 5 and 11, he could’ve hit better to set himself up with some birdie looks that instead led to pars.
“Besides that, I think it (was) a really good round of golf.”
The difference, he said, was the second nine, especially after back-to-back bogeys on Nos. 18 and 1. He went bogey-free for the remainder and holed out three birdies, including all-important ones on par-4 Nos. 2 and 3, which are rated the third and ninth toughest holes, respectively.
“Even after that to just keep hitting fairways, keep hitting greens and giving myself chances, obviously it was relatively stress-free from after that first hole, those last eight holes. Very comfortable to play that way.”
On No. 2, after putting his tee shot dead center down the fairway, he stuck his second 10 feet above the hole and knocked it in from there. Then on the next hole, after another dead center tee shot, his second shot from the top of the hill went thirty five feet above the hole but spun back to within 14 feet. His birdie putt dropped to put him at one-under.
“That was the main difference, making a couple of putts,” he said.
He, Day and Collin Morikawa tee off Friday at 1:05 p.m. on No. 1.
