AUS OPEN: Jason Day determined to salvage “disappointing year”

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In a year that saw him lose his World No.1 ranking and face the very real prospect of losing his mother, Jason Day is on track to winning a prize very close to his heart.

Back playing in Australia for the first time in four years, a back-nine birdie blitz catapulted the 30-year-old into contention on day two of the Emirates Australian Open at The Australian Golf Club.

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While compatriots Adam Scott and Marc Leishman were at home thinking about next week’s Australian PGA Championship, Day seized the opportunity and fired a 3-under 68 to trail Victorian young gun Lucas Herbert by one shot heading into the weekend. First-round leader Cameron Davis carded a 72 to be one stroke further back in third.

Day, still vying for a maiden Stonehaven Cup, briefly joined Herbert for a share of the lead when he carded consecutive birdies on holes 12-15. However, some missed opportunities on the closing stretch – including finding the fairway bunker on the reachable par-5 18th, put the brakes on a spectacular finish.

“I’m very pleased with how I played, I gave myself the opportunity again today to make a lot of birdies,” Day said after the round. “I was a little bit disappointed with how I finished – I was at 9-under going down 17 in front position, had 125 yards to the pin and just hit a poor shot, which led to a bogey.”

While Day fulfilled his end of the bargain in the two-pronged sponsors’ dream weekend pairing of Day and Jordan Spieth, the other half wasn’t so lucky. Defending champion Spieth failed to take advantage of the easier morning conditions, signing for a disappointing 71 to remain at 1-under.

But Day wasn’t prepared to write off the American superstar. While the top three have separated themselves from the pack, the Queenslander was still looking over his shoulder at two of the pre-tournament favourites:

“We’ve got 9, 8, 7 and the next best is 4-under, so right now it’s kind of a three-man race, but Cameron Smith is just at 4-under. He knows Australian golf pretty well, he’s been playing some tremendous golf this year, so you obviously wouldn’t put him out either, and obviously Jordan Spieth down at 1-under.”

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Herbert backed up an impressive 67 on a windy Thursday afternoon with a 66 on Friday morning that shot him into the halfway lead. He was flawless through 17 holes before making a sloppy bogey 6 on the 18th.

Herbert took a lot of positives from last week’s NSW Open in western Sydney where he finished second behind Jason Scrivener. Despite getting to 18-under, he felt he didn’t play particularly well but just holed a lot of putts.

The 21-year-old from Bendigo is becoming accustomed to spending time atop the leaderboard. He’s held the lead at the Queensland, New South Wales, Victorian and Australian Open over the past 18 months. In last year’s Open at Royal Sydney, Herbert shared the first-round lead before fading to finish T-20.

But Herbert [above] has struggled with playing golf to earn a living since turning pro in late-2015. Asked about the challenges, he revealed: “Money. I haven’t got much of that – although after last week, I’m all right.

“As an amateur you stand there on that first tee and you could hit it in a five-yard slot. Then you stand up there as a pro and now it’s for your living, and you’re like, Please hit the ball, please make contact and don’t be a YouTube hit.”

Herbert has also struggled with working out who he can trust: “I’ll go and look at my phone in 10 minutes’ time and there’ll be 50 messages on there, and 45 of them are from people that you don’t hear from until you start playing well and they see you on TV.”

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