Dening Day, who is battling lung cancer, did not know her son Jason Day tearfully announced he had withdrawn from the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play.
“Eventually, Dening found video clips and saw the pain on her son’s tear-swollen face as he finally succumbed to the enormity of her plight,” Australian writer Ben Everill of PGATour.com writes in this profile of Dening Day and the influence she had on Jason.
“Then Dening – the ultra-tough mum who raised a champion – did what she rarely does. Like Jason earlier that afternoon, she started to cry. So much so that her daughter Yanna would joke later, ‘That’s her tears quota for the year.’
“But Dening’s tears were not of fear for what lay ahead. She wasn’t worried for her very existence like most of us would be.
“The tears stemmed from guilt. She never wanted her son to worry, even after being initially diagnosed with just a year left on earth. She never wanted him to stress.
“She never even wanted him to know.”
