Australian PGA Championship: Aussie golf star Jason Day’s fears of how he would be received on return home were allayed during day one
Jason Day is not your typical Aussie athlete. He’s a gentle soul with a complex mind. And that’s what made him a little different to his two playing partners on day one of the Australian PGA Championship.
Jason Day thought he was sticking his hand out for another high five, but instead a young kid quietly slipped him a shell. The pretty type children love collecting along the beaches.
So what, you might ask?
Well, by the time Day had trudged his way back through the slop at Royal Queensland to sign his scorecard after an early start to the Australian PGA Championship, he was telling caddie Luke Reardon the story about the random gift … and to take care of the shell.
We love seeing you home @JDayGolf 🇦🇺ðŸ¤#AusPGApic.twitter.com/OlNGtfTJUU
— PGA of Australia (@PGAofAustralia) November 21, 2024
The thing with Day is he’s one of the most honest and vulnerable athletes you could meet.
This week, he’s hinted at his trepidation about how fans will react to him finally coming home. It must be a hell of a feeling to fear you might be an outsider in your own country, your own state and the city you spent so much time in.
But he couldn’t help but worry a little.
Australians love their athletes, and they particularly love those they can relate to.
In the super group put together to start the Australian PGA Championship on Thursday, they could relate to Cameron Smith because he’s the mullet-wearing, car-loving fisherman who happens to be really good at golf.
They could relate to Min Woo Lee, the uber-talented long hitter who has thumbed his way to a massive profile, not only thanks to his on-course feats, but through his social media antics and embracing nicknames like “The Chef” and “Dr Chipinski”.
But they don’t easily relate to Day.
He’s a gentle soul with a complex mind. He’s happily settled in the United States in Ohio, where it was due to snow this week. He obsesses over the minutiae of his golf swing.
In more than three months since the end of the PGA Tour season, he could have done anything, or as much as you can with five kids. He kept playing golf and reckons he only had five days off, all the while wondering: how will they treat me back home?
That’s what happens when you haven’t been back in seven years. His family, including his children, are still yet to see where the former world No. 1 grew up at Beaudesert and the courses he made a name for himself on. It wasn’t an easy upbringing, and for that he should be cut a lot of slack.
Obviously, there are some years when he couldn’t come back due to injury or Covid or the imminent arrival of a child. But there are others when he knows he could have endeared himself more to Australian fans, and with maturity comes that realisation.
It will be a hit-and-run mission this time as he plays Tiger Woods’ event next week, rather than stay for the Australian Open. But at least he’s come back this year.
“Usually the Australian crowds are great, there’s never a problem,” Day shrugged after an opening round four-under 67 on Thursday. “But it’s been a while since I’ve been here so I wasn’t too sure how things would unfold. [Yet] the crowds have been great.”
The true test will be if he’s in a shootout with Smith, Lee, or Marc Leishman or Lucas Herbert on Sunday.
Will they side with him then?
Having set his alarm at 3am to be ready for his 6.10am local time start, an under-the-weather Smith overcame a sluggish start to drop four birdies on his inward nine to join Day at four-under, two behind first round leader Elvis Smylie (-6).
Day’s round was a lesson in efficiency, bogey free and little trouble apart from when his drive on the fifth hole lodged itself in the muddy tyre tracks on a cart path, for which he got relief.
Lee (-3) tempered a hot start with a cold finish, and kicked stones back to the range after his round.
Smith was all laughs when down his last hole he hung a drive which flirted with the right side and unsuspecting fans.
By the time he got to the ball, Smith asked: “Sorry guys, it didn’t hit anyone, did it?”
A voice piped up from the gallery.
“Yeah, it got me.”
It was Smith’s dad, Des.
He didn’t get hit, but was only a few metres away from its landing spot. The Smiths feel at home around Royal Queensland, where they are treated like royalty. You sense Day feels he’s fighting to have the same affection one day.
“Obviously Cammy’s a big draw here,” Day said. “It would be fun [to have a battle on the weekend]. It’s always fun to be in contention, regardless of who it is. But if it’s two Brissy boys, that’d be nice too.”
Maybe by then, Day will come out of his shell and feel like he belongs back home.
And a little kid’s gesture might be a big part of it.
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