Ten days before the start of the Masters, Jason Day’s status for the year’s first Major remains up in the air, according to the Associated Press.
Day withdrew from his opening match at last week’s WGC-Dell Match Play Championship, revealing his mom, Dening, was diagnosed with lung cancer. Two days later, Day shared that she underwent successful surgery, but on Tuesday (AEST), the former World No.1 said that doesn’t mean he’ll definitely tee it up next Thursday at Augusta National.
“My mum told me not to worry about it,” Day said via a video conference set up by the Zurich Classic. “It’s hard to do that. It’s easy to say . . . but it’s really, really difficult. So currently I’m scheduled to play Augusta . . . but if things don’t come back the way we want them, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
In addition to tentatively keeping the Masters on his schedule, Day told reporters he plans to practise at Augusta National later this week. The family is awaiting the results of tests regarding the presence of cancer in Dening’s body.
At the beginning of February, Jason Day was No.1 in the Official World Golf Ranking and a co-favourite to win the Masters.
“It’s very, very difficult to even think about playing golf when a loved one is going through such a traumatic experience,” said Day, who lost his father to cancer when he was 12. “Once I get past this initial stage, hopefully I’ll find some balance and I’ll be able to kind of move on and really focus on getting my game back.”
