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WGC BRIDGESTONE INVITATIONAL

August 6, 2011

Jason Day

AKRON, OHIO

MARK STEVENS: We'd like to welcome Jason Day. You got it to 11, one off the lead. If you want to talk about your round today.
JASON DAY: Yeah, actually felt like I hit it pretty good today. I know someone is going to ask me about my driving, but I felt like I drove it actually pretty well. They were solid drives. It's tough to hit the fairways here.
You know, I'm very happy where I am right now. Obviously got off to a great start, eagling 2, and then hit the brakes a little bit on 10 and 11. But other than that, I needed something to happen in my round, and obviously holing the putt on 15 kind of did that for me. And I birdied 16 and came home and birdied 18, which was nice.

Q. Talk a little bit about the international flavor at the top of the leaderboard.
JASON DAY: It's great for golf. It really is great for golf. I think right now America is kind of yearning for that next young player, whether that be Nick Watney, Rickie Fowler or one of the other young guys, there's plenty of young guys out there that are from America. I think it just shows how diverse, again, golf is getting, so that's nice.

Q. You've had so many great top 5 finishes, top 10 finishes this year. What's it going to take for you to break through tomorrow and win a tournament?
JASON DAY: You know, I think just trying -- it's going to be tough. The course is going to be baked out if we get good weather this afternoon through until tomorrow, the course is only going to play tougher because it's going to bounce 20, 30 yards on the fairway, greens are going to bounce five to ten yards coming in there with short clubs.
My goal tomorrow is just to go out there and trust every swing and try and set myself up with opportunities, and if I can just go out there and have fun and trust my swing and give it 100 percent, I can't be disappointed with how I finish.

Q. Are you frustrated that you've been so close?
JASON DAY: Yeah, but I think it's only a matter of time. I don't want to rush it and I don't want to force things, because once I try and force the issue, I know that I'm going to make mental errors and I'm going to make mistakes out there. I'd much rather keep myself around the lead rather than go out there and try and force the issue and be five shots back coming down 18.

Q. You mentioned all the young players that are up there now. Can you talk about, first of all, being part of that young generation on the leaderboard? And secondly, I guess Adam Scott is the old man in the group now?
JASON DAY: I've known Scottie since I was 15, so he's a good mate of mine. We played at the Masters the last round, and it's going to be fun. He's played great. It's good to see him back up on top of the leaderboard obviously with Steve Williams on the bag. I think that's helping a lot, and I think that's kind of kicking him in the right direction, which is nice. It's good for Australian golf.
The game of golf is in really good shape right now with Ishikawa playing great here, McIlroy always plays great, and then Fowler, I heard a couple of cheers, he holed out on 11 today, I think, and it's fun. It really is fun. Give us a good few years, and it's going to be a lot of young players out here that are going to be in contention.

Q. Is it weird to see a guy who's 31 years old as sort of the elder statesman on the leaderboard?
JASON DAY: Yeah, well, going back five, maybe ten years ago, 31 was young out here. It's only getting younger, and I think with how -- with the technology that we have today, with the competition that we have over here and obviously around the world, the game of golf is only improving, and with improvement, that obviously involves the younger kids.

Q. What did you think about the accelerated starting times today? Talk about your start on No. 2.
JASON DAY: Yeah, I'm actually pretty thankful that we teed off early because it would have been hot out there teeing off around now.
I got off to a great start. I hit a great drive down 2 and hit a really nice hybrid to about 15, 18 feet and holed that. Like I said, if we do get warm weather, it's going to make the course play tough, and I'm not too sure what kind of tee times we're going to have tomorrow, but I think they're twosomes off one tee, which is going to be nice. It's going to be -- hopefully it's going to be nice and warm tomorrow and should make a good, tough test of golf tomorrow.

Q. Are we going to see Jason Day go out and try to win this thing tomorrow?
JASON DAY: You know what, I've learned from the past if I go out and try and attack the course, I make mistakes and I get frustrated. And when I get frustrated, I don't win tournaments. I think I'm going to just go out there and just give my preparation 100 percent before each shot, and then whatever happens after I bit the ball happens. I can't control what happens. I'm just going to go out there and give it 100 percent.

Q. You are sort of a feel and a confidence player. You talk about that putt; that was what you needed, right, to kick you into gear? You couldn't buy one before that.
JASON DAY: Yeah, I was hitting great shots into the greens, and I just -- it felt I was going cold with the putter. That's just what it was. I just couldn't buy one. And I needed that putt on 15 to go, because that kick-started the round back up.
And then I hit a great shot down 16, drive down 16, and I had -- I could have gone for it. Obviously I hit the 3-wood onto the green, but it was 280 over the water on a downslope. I just didn't think the -- the risk was too high to go for it, and I laid up and made a good birdie and hit a good drive down 18 and hit a nice wedge shot in there and made birdie there.

Q. I just want to get your thoughts on Ishikawa. I think of you as barely being out of diapers at 23, and he's 19. Just his game, his personality seems like such a low-key guy and not at all caught up in his own celebrity and seems to have all the shots and just kind of trying to find his place in the States here.
JASON DAY: Yeah, I think I've seen Ishikawa a lot actually over the last few years. You see him at the majors, you see him at the World Golf Championships. He's floating around, but he hasn't really contended. And sometimes it just takes people a little longer than others. It didn't take long for Rory to come back and win a major after he played the Masters. Maybe Ishikawa it takes him a little bit longer to feel comfortable in his own skin and feel like he belongs out here. With him being tied for second right now, that certainly should help that along.
He's got a good swing. I see him working very, very hard on the range all the time. He spends a lot of hours out there chipping and putting and hitting balls. He wins a lot on the Japanese Tour, and I think it would be good if he came over onto the PGA TOUR and played a lot. I think it would be great for golf over here. But like I said, he just has to feel comfortable in his own skin and feel confident in himself.

Q. Just to cover both bases with the weather, when I last spoke to the weather man, the front is still expected to come through a bit later than original. If it does bucket down, how does that change tomorrow?
JASON DAY: Yeah, obviously the course is going to play a lot softer. I don't know how fast they can get the greens. I think the greens played a lot two to three feet quicker, I felt like they did today, than they did the last two days. And if that happens, we're going to be able to stop -- it just depends on how much rain we get, but if it does bucket down we'll be able to stop 6-irons, 5-irons on the green pretty easy. And if you're hitting your drives down the right or left center of the fairway, they're not going to run through to the rough, so it'll make conditions a lot easier.

Q. So within your patient game plan, you'll need to be more aggressive, I guess, patiently aggressive?
JASON DAY: Conservative-aggressive, right? I have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow. You know, I might come out and absolutely flush it and play great. So the thing is that I can only control what I'm doing right now. I can't control what happens tomorrow. Luke Donald might shoot a 64 again and come through and win, and I can't control that. I'm just going to go out there and play my game.

Q. Just to follow that theme about being comfortable in your skin, if you look at the top of the leaderboard now, there's a lot of young players. I mean, Adam is like old at 30. Is it now the case that all of you have been knocking at the door and you've got a few wins but now you're getting more used to the fact that it's okay to be at the top of the leaderboard and maybe your time is coming?
JASON DAY: Yeah. It's been a funny year. The only goal that I really don't have -- that I haven't checked off my list is a win yet. You know, starting the year, I really wanted to win again. I haven't been able to check it off, so maybe -- hopefully tomorrow that would be a good start. But there's a lot of tournaments left for me this year, but it's been a very exciting year for me and for golf in general. There's been a lot of rookies that have won on TOUR, and there's been a lot of veterans that have won on TOUR, as well.
I'm just enjoying myself right now. It's been a successful year in my head, and I'm just -- I don't want to try and go backwards from here. I just want to try and keep pressing forward and keep playing good golf.

Q. To follow up on that, do you think that, as you were saying earlier about Ryo, that sometimes you need to feel comfortable being at the top of the leaderboard, but some guys might do it very quickly and start winning early like Tiger did, and some other guys it might take more time to feel comfortable?
JASON DAY: That's exactly right. It's tough. I've never had people yell out my name, like, "Go, Jason," and "Go, J.D.," everything. It's a new experience for me, and that's what I have to get used to. I'm normally the quiet guy that kind of works his way up the leaderboard from behind. This is a new experience for me obviously over the last year being on top of the leaderboard on the big stage. Like I said, the more times I try and put myself here, sooner or later, I'll kind of break through and then hopefully I can keep improving my game and winning bigger and better things.

Q. You talked about the young guys on TOUR, and you've talked about starting friendly rivalries with these guys. Do you want more of that, to go down the stretch with these boys over and over again?
JASON DAY: I believe it's good for the game. You can't go out -- in every sport there's a rivalry between -- whether it's teams or players or -- it makes it better for the game, the game of golf, it makes it better for the sport in general. People talk about it more and people want to see it more. It's like the Phil and Tiger rivalry back in the day. Everyone would talk about that, oh, I can't wait to see them play in the final group together.
So I think there's no hatred, it's just a good, friendly rivalry, like you said. And it's competition. It's getting really, really tough to win golf tournaments out here. With the way golf is going right now with how young the guys are coming out and winning, it's only going to get tougher over the next few years.

Q. Will you be counting on knocking Adam off?
JASON DAY: We really enjoyed the Masters, so obviously we're going to try and make it as exciting as possible.
MARK STEVENS: Thanks a lot, Jason. Good luck tomorrow.

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