NORTON, Mass. — This Labor Day Weekend has been quite eventful for Jason Day and his family.
The world’s No. 1 golfer just barely made the cut after shooting a combined 1-under through two rounds at the Deutsche Bank Championship, and his family was involved in a car accident, which resulted in his wife, Ellie, going to the hospital.
But Ellie and the rest of his family are OK, and he bounced back with a much better performance in Sunday’s Round 3 at TPC Boston.
Day (minus-4) certainly still left shots out there, as his 3-under-par 68 could have been even better if not for two bogeys and a double bogey on the par-4 10th. But it still was an improvement after Day spent considerable time at the driving range.
“Yes, I worked very hard leading up to just to try and get the driver straightened out,” Day said. “Between Rounds 2 and 3, worked hard again. There was only one kind of bad drive today, but for the most part everything else is coming around nicely. I kind of worked out what was going on, what was going wrong, and tried to change that up for today and it seemed like it worked out pretty good.”
Day had four birdies on the front nine, including one on the first hole. But he bogeyed the fifth and eighth holes to make the turn at 34, and any momentum seemingly went away after he doubled the 10th.
Day hit a nice approach shot on the par-4 15th and tapped it in for birdie, though, and he closed out his round with an eagle on the par-5 18th.
“Yeah, I was saying to Brooks (Koepka) actually walking up 18, the last couple weeks have been spurts of like that guy, the No. 1 player in the world, and that guy is wisely playing on Tour,” Day said. “So it’s just been up and down a little bit of late, but I feel good about it.”
Day probably would need an all-time great round Monday — if weather permits it — and some shaky rounds from the leaders to even have a shot at coming close to the top of the leaderboard at the second leg of the FedEx Cup. Yet he still is in solid position in the playoff standings to earn the title and a $10 million bonus check.
And he can count his blessings when he heads back to his bus Sunday afternoon that his family is safe and sound.
“Yeah, everything’s good,” he said of the accident. “They were just going through an intersection where the bus is parked, a big bus came flying through and hit the back end of their car. Ellie had to go to the hospital. She did something to her neck, so obviously whiplash. I think I’m just happy that everyone’s healthy. It could have been worse.”
Thumbnail photo via Eric Sucar/USA TODAY Sports Images
