Jason Day faces whole new challenge at PGA Championship after his first win in five years

Going from good to great means winning more majors and with one on offer this week, Jason Day knows his drought-breaking win is just one step.

Jason Day’s game is in a good place after winning the AT&T Byron Nelson. Picture: Mike Mulholland / Getty Images via AFP

Winning was massive, a reward for putting in the hard work when the doubts almost became too much to handle, and a timely confidence booster too.

But Jason Day has been here before and knows the balance that he now has to have as he manages momentum and renewed expectation with the reality of taking on the best of the best at a major championship.

Day’s victory at the Byron Nelson Classic, his first win anywhere since 2018, cementing a return to the world’s top 20 having slumped to 168 just over 12 months ago, was an emotional one filled with some sublime golf.

It came after playing what he called “some garbage golf” during his form slump, a time during which his body let him down and his mind was telling him many different things.

Jason Day celebrates with his family. Picture: Mike Mulholland / Getty Images via AFP

But while the win confirmed what he and everyone in golf knew, that Day’s best is as good as anyone’s, the 35-year-old former world No.1 is now seasoned enough to know about peaks and troughs.

That’s why he’s adjusting his preparation for the PGA Championships at Oak Hill in New York, with down time and work time, knowing that his big step last week isn’t the final one he’s going to take.

There’s a step to take from good to great, and that means winning another major.

“You definitely need more than just one,” Day, who secured his lone major in the 2015 PGA Championship, said after his victory.

“I definitely think that my game is good enough to win now on any given week.

“But to be dominant like a Jon Rahm or Scottie Scheffler, to be competitive like those guys, like Rory, it takes a lot more consistent work to be able to get my game to a point where it’s where it needs to be like that.

“I’d rather be where I’m at right now than where I was a week ago missing a cut (at the Wells Fargo). There’s a lot of lot of good things that I’m going to take into next week.

“I just got to really kind of manage myself over the next few days. It’s really crucial to know that I still have to go out there and prepare on Tuesday and Wednesday and really manage myself because I know I’m gonna hit a wall here over the next couple of days.

“And I don’t want to kind of lose the really nice momentum that I have going into next week.”

Day won the PGA in 2015. Picture: David Cannon/Getty Images

Day is one of seven Australians in the field for the PGA Championship, and, odds-wise, the bookies have him in the top five chances.

But even amid the emotion of his Mother’s Day win, coming after his own mum, Dening, died last year, Day knew there would be a “low” he’d have to overcome to build himself up to go again this week.

“So just on past experiences, you go from such a high to a low and that can actually kill your adrenaline, and then you’re coming into Thursday kind of sluggish and not really prepared,” he said.

“So I have to understand that moving forward, but I think things are moving in the right direction.”

Even after this week, though, the slog continues for Day, who having cast aside all those thoughts of giving up during his garbage period is on that long path back to the top.

“I know that over time hopefully it’s the implementation of the small little things that I’m thinking about yields like multiple winning seasons instead of just winning once,” he said.

“I gotta give myself some time to see how the rest of the year progresses to really kind of understand and look at it from a bird’s-eye view and say, ‘Hey, your game is good, but you only win once, or you won multiple time, but what are we going to do to try and win more’.

“But the game is in a really good spot heading into next week.”

AUSSIES IN THE PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

Jason Day

Cam Davis

Lucas Herbert

Min Woo Lee

David Micheluzzi

Adam Scott

Cameron Smith

Originally published as Jason Day faces whole new challenge at PGA Championship after his first win in five years