THE MODERATOR: We'd like to welcome Jason Day into the interview room. He is making his 13th career start at the BMW Championship, and he is our 2015 champion. Welcome to the BMW Championship. I know it's a tournament you love. If we can get some comments on being here this week.
JASON DAY: It's good to be back here in Denver. It's been quite a long time since Cherry Hills. But I feel like this is a great market to be in. Obviously Castle Pines is setting up nicely for a good championship. I love what they have done to the golf course and also the clubhouse. I think the membership should be happy about that, be proud of that.
I think we've got obviously a great field here this week with the top 50, so I'm looking forward to a good championship. BMW do an amazing job. Every single year we come and play, you can feel it's definitely different to most tournaments.
Q. Let's talk about the state of your game as you try to make East Lake next week.
JASON DAY: Yeah, this is like a story that I'm trying to change in my mind. Obviously I haven't played as solid as I'd like to, so I've just got to work on a few things. I've been constantly trying to work on my swing to just feel a certain shot, and I'm just kind of working on that right now.
But overall I feel like my short game is good, my putting feels good. Just kind of work out the swing and kind of find something this week would be good.
Q. If someone were to have said to you in '06 when you were here that in 2024 you would have accomplished all of this World No. 1, you would have won a major, would have won several times, would you have said, no way, or is that all? What would you have said in '06?
JASON DAY: '06 I would have been excited that someone would have said that to me. Obviously being from where I was and kind of just starting out freshly as a professional, to hear that, that would have been amazing.
But it was always a goal of mine and Col's to get to No. 1. We had a plan to get to No. 1 at like 22, something like that. Then we didn't obviously get there until I was in my late 20s, but we ended up getting there, which was good.
We were always goal driven.
Granted, now, some of those goals were pretty lofty. Like getting to No. 1 in the world, it's very difficult to do. There's a small percentage of guys that have done that, and I know that. But I felt like I had the game as a young kid to be able to develop a little bit more and be able to accomplish that goal, even though we still had the likes of Tiger and Phil and Ernie and Vijay and these big guys that were still playing the game.
But looking forward from 2006 until now, I feel very happy with what I've accomplished in my career. Getting to No. 1, winning a major, the wins that I've had out here on the PGA TOUR, some big ones, I feel very grateful that I had the opportunity to not only win those tournaments but also be out here for this long. It's very difficult these days, I feel like, to stay out on the PGA TOUR just because it's super competitive these days.
But it's nice to know that I've adapted over the years. I've stayed pretty young, even though I've had some health issues. I've stayed pretty young mentally and physically. So that's been nice.
Q. Xander and Scottie have both had very special seasons. They look a little bit different. If you could choose one or the other, which would you choose and why?
JASON DAY: Ooh. I think once you get to a certain point, you start thinking about major championships. It would be nice for me to be able to cap off a few more majors. I think even though I'm definitely not knocking Scottie's year because it's tremendous, it's phenomenal, I think he is the Player of the Year currently right now, even though Xander has won two majors, I would probably go more towards the majors just because I want to add more majors to my career.
Q. In 2006 you were still trying to find your way on to the TOUR. I'm wondering if you've ever pinpointed a tournament, a round, a moment when you told yourself, I definitely can play at that level?
JASON DAY: I'm trying to think. I wouldn't say it was a moment. I would just say that it was just a gradual buildup.
I think 2014 was crucial for me. Even though I didn't win in 2014, I could just see there were things building up in my game that year, what I was working on mentally, the process that I was working on, physically what I was doing in the gym and how my body was changing and how much more speed that I had gained because at that point I was starting to put more -- I put more muscle on than what I had before, and I started getting more speed, which made the game ultimately easier for me.
It's not more so like a tournament that like, hey, this is what changed. I could tell you exactly the moment where I started feeling better with my putting, but -- I know exactly the moment. It was on the 10th hole at Hilton Head where I holed a 60-footer, and since then my putting changed instantly. But that's not the question, obviously.
Yeah, I think 2014 was huge, and then going into 2015 winning at the Farmers Insurance early in the year and then feeling like, hey, I'm kind of part of this tour now, I feel more established, even though I had some great years before that, I didn't have a lot of wins, and then from 2015 on, that's when things started kind of falling in place.
Q. I know all about those great wins on TOUR, et cetera, but tell me your most memorable money match with either mates or guys here in preparation?
JASON DAY: Money match. Typically we play hammer at home, and it's a dollar hammer. I'm playing with Ricker, as you know. He's a good player. He's a good buddy of mine. We grew up together. I'm playing with Luke and another buddy, might have been David Lutterus. We're standing on the 17th hole at Mount Vernon Country Club. It was a par-3 down the hill with literally a pitching wedge, and we all hit our tee shots and we just started hammering Ricker, and we started getting kind of angry at each other, so we kept on hammering. By the end of it, he had a 10-foot putt down the hill left to right and it was for $780. From a dollar hammer. So just goes to show how much we hammered. Now, obviously a hammer doubles every single time you say it.
But yeah, those can get out of hand pretty quick.
Q. Did he make it?
JASON DAY: Yeah, he did. I couldn't believe it. Which was insane, because I would have guaranteed my friends -- I don't really take money off people, but if it's my friends, I'm 100 percent taking their money.
Q. Just wondering, at the Olympics you were very sort of moved by the occasion. Was there any -- did that linger at all? Did it give you a boost coming back, anything that stuck with you that has -- you've tried to keep in your mind as you play?
JASON DAY: Well, it taught me that it's not always about the money that we play for. It's about -- because we went over there. It's one, two or three, and if you don't get one of those, you're going home. I finished T9 and I'm like, congratulations, you finished T9; you don't get anything. You go home.
It taught me the urgency of, hey, I need to go out there and try and do something to win, which was -- that's what you need out here. I think sometimes you can get a little bit comfortable out here and going, yeah, top 10 is not too bad, top 5 is not too bad. But when you are playing with some urgency, when your back is pushed against the wall and you go out and do what you need to do, that's a level of motivation, a level of playing that I would love to be in all the time. It's just sometimes you just kind of get in your own way and you're like, yeah, a top 10 is pretty good here this week. But that's not the mentality. You have to go out and try to win every single week.
That's kind of what I got out of it. You've either going to finish one, two or three, or it's not good enough, and obviously it wasn't good enough.
Q. Did you ever by chance look into what the Australian Olympic people pay their medal winners? Scottie got like $33,000 or something from the U.S.
JASON DAY: No, I didn't -- well, to be honest, I was happy to be there. I don't know how much they paid. I heard -- I think it's Malaysia or Singapore is some astronomical number.
But that's life-changing for a lot of people. Obviously that's amazing if they can do that and accomplish that. That's amazing.
I think being from Australia and the way that we view the Olympics down in Australia is completely different to most other countries in regards to whatever they pay out. The money that they pay out is just like a little bit of icing on top of the cake because at the end of the day you're trying to win a medal, and as Australians that's what we've always looked at. It's like, gold, silver, bronze, did the person win the medal, and that's all our main focus.
Q. I'm curious, even though it's 18 years ago, do you remember anything when you went out there this week from 2006?
JASON DAY: I do remember the elevation change after 1. I do remember 6. A little bit of 6. I know they changed that. I do remember 7. I know they lengthened that, as well. But some of the other holes are all fuzzy. 18 years is a long time. Yeah, that's kind of what I remember of the course.
I do remember walking up these steps thinking David Toms has an amazing haircut. He had a visor on one time and there was not one bit of hair out of place. I was walking right behind him.
They're kind of memories that I have. Yeah, they're certainly what I can think of.
Q. The changes to the course, they didn't really strike you from then to now?
JASON DAY: Yeah, it's kind of hard. I can't quite remember -- like what I'm seeing right now is what I'm getting. It's almost like I'm seeing it for the first time again. I can kind of get the gist. I can remember telling Luke last week, my caddie, look, it's an interesting first tee ball, especially with this wind. It's in out of the left and the elevation change is huge and the ball stays up in the air for such a long time. Yeah, I do remember telling him that it's on the side of a hill and there's going to be a lot of elevation change and the walk is going to be hard. That's what I do remember.
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