MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 9, 2026

Jason Day

Quick Quotes

Q. We hear all the time about how experience is so vital in Augusta National. You have a ton of experience here. How much of that helped you in the first round?

JASON DAY: Yeah, no, definitely helped a ton. I got off to a bit of a shaky start. I mean, had a nice up and down on one and then hooked my ball, tee ball on two. You know, then obviously made bogey on 3.

So just trying to steady the ship, knowing that there is just -- with the pin locations we had today there are certain locations on the green where you just have to hit them. Even if it you leave yourself 60 feet, that's fine. Just get in there, make your par, move on.

6 for instance. You can even say 4. If you hit it just short and left, it'll leave yourself a long putt but it's very vital to work on a lot of speed, especially uphill speed training with your putting. Just because you don't realize -- it's easy to kind of visualize the ball coming down the hill, and for me personally seeing the ball kind of stop. It's hard to give it enough here around here sometimes.

It's just very difficult because you don't want to just beat the ball past the hole because then you got a tough putt coming back down. Most of the guys nurse it up there. You got to work a lot on speed around here.

Q. You have your green lights and red lights so to speak before the round?

JASON DAY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's just take 13 for instance. Hit a decent drive down the left. Laid up anyway because I knew I probably wasn't going to be able to get to the green hitting out of a divot.

Laid up to 80 -- you think I had 83 yards, which is like a perfect 9-iron, I mean, lob wedge. And 9:00 lob wedge, which is bouncing, bouncing and stopping. That's a green light all day long because it's left.

15, not so much. That's a massive difference between the front side and the back side with the greens, and how firm and speedy they were was dramatic.

So 15 was very -- I mean, I was just saying earlier you don't realize -- a lot of people don't realize how tough that wedge shot is. It makes us very nervous. We are just trying to land just on the green. Shane and I landed just up to the green and bounced up to the back. I looked at him and he just started laughing shaking his head.

Yeah, there are a lot of certain green light pin locations out there today. They are very few of them.

Q. Talk us through your shot on 14 through the trees and what club was it?

JASON DAY: It was an 8-iron. I had 153 yards to the pin. Wind was in out of the left. We had about three yards, three to four yards of spin with another seven-ish yards of hurt. So we are just trying to hit a big high cut.

Sometimes in those scenarios it's coming out of first cut it can kind of -- if it you contact with wrong it can fly straight through and you dent get the cut. Just comes out like a flier, so it was important to slice across it. Wasn't that far from being pretty good.

I mean, just needed another, you know, probably few yards of cut and I think it would've come back you down nice.

Q. Great reception after that shot or you're locked in?

JASON DAY: No, you're locked in. The crowd is great and the patrons are fantastic, but you're just -- you're kind of out there grinding. It's difficult. You don't have time to pay attention to many people. You're just trying to plot yourself around. Yeah, it's difficult just keep yourself internal and keep going.

Q. How does it change your mood? Few big putts coming home, how does that change the mood?

JASON DAY: Yeah, definitely feels good when you hole those putts. Obviously shooting 3-under is always better than shooting 2-under or 1-under.

So I need to go to the range and work on some stuff. Need to make sure I'm staying on top of my speed because I feel like the greens are only going to firm out and get faster.

Q. Been a while that it's been like this. Since...

JASON DAY: Yeah.

Q. We usually have some softness.

JASON DAY: Man, like it's -- you can start seeing -- if you look down the first fairway you start seeing the purple change. That's when you know when you start seeing that tinge of purple, that's when you know it's starting to get firm and fast.

Like I said yesterday was a dramatic difference in the way the course was playing. It was very soft -- it was softer, a lot softer, a lot slower. Now you're starting to see things roll out a little bit more. Like I mean, you can't -- there is certain locations where you have to miss and sometimes you just got it suck it up.

So that's when getting back to your question about the experience, definitely helps knowing that -- being around here 15 times now, it definitely helps in those situations.

Q. You always play well here. As you said, 15 times you've been knocking on this door. This is the start. Walk us through it?

JASON DAY: Yeah, definitely. I mean, obviously McIlroy has got off to a great start. What did he do? Birdied 14 and 15. Burnsy is playing great. When I see 5-under leading, and with what weather we got coming up, I've just got to be very patient.

I just got to just kind of take my birdies when I can and just don't try and force anything too much. Got off to a great start. Just feel good about my game. We got three more days. Just got to be very patient. Take my birdies when I can and when I don't have the opportunity, just get myself in the correct location so I can get it up and down.

Q. What do you think the conditions will be like by Saturday?

JASON DAY: I mean, just depends on what they want. If they want digits to win it'll be baked out and fast and guys will be kind of spewing on themselves out there. Be really difficult.

So if they want -- they can definitely soften it out if they need to. It'll be interesting. It's going to be a good challenge regardless.

Q. How much of an eye do you keep on Rory and what he's doing.

JASON DAY: Obviously I'm looking at him right now because the leaderboard is staring me right in the face. Obviously he's off to a great start defending the championship, the Masters.

So, yeah, there is plenty of great golfers out there that you have to worry about as well. Not just him. And first and foremost you got to worry about yourself. Just make sure you're doing the right things.

If you can do that and execute the shots that you need to, then hopefully things should take care of themselves.