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Jason Day hadn’t bothered with a practice round, nor even glimpsed the Oak Hill course, but the weary if exhilarated Aussie feels going in blind to the PGA Championship is worth it to stay mentally sharp for his bid to regain the title.
Still tired following his first PGA triumph in five years at the AT&T Byron Nelson on Sunday, Day, having jetted in from Texas, reckoned he was happy to skip practice at the course in New York State to maintain the mental edge that drove him to victory on Sunday.
“I haven’t played the course. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen the course. I most likely probably won’t see the course today,” shrugged the 35-year-old Queenslander on Wednesday to some surprise, admitting on the eve of the event that it was hardly ideal preparation to try to reprise his sole major triumph in the 2015 PGA.
“I’m just not fighting anything, I just want to make sure that I’m mentally prepared and mentally ready for tomorrow,” he said.
“It sucks to not be able to prepare the way I want to, but having mental tiredness out there won’t do me any good.
“No matter how well I prepare – even if I go out and play a practice round – if I come in tomorrow tired and exhausted, it won’t do me any favours. So I’m just going to try and take it easy.”
Day, who had an outing on the driving range, said it wasn’t the first time he had come into a major without the benefit of a practice round, but fancied his real test was going to be adapting to a completely different course to last week’s win at TPC Craig Ranch.
“The difference is dramatically different,” said Day. “The grass is different. The sand is different. The playing surfaces are totally different.
“I won’t be able to see how the greens are bouncing, coming in to approach play, and I won’t really see how the greens are rolling typically out there.
“I know we have practice facilities here, but it won’t give you the best preparation going forward unless you’ve seen the golf course.
“If I come in a little bit mentally tired and start making mental errors, it’s one of those golf courses from what I know and what I’ve played in the past, that it’s going to go downhill pretty quick from there.
“I’ve just got to be cautious, understand that I’ve come off a good week from last week, and with a win comes some expectations.
“But, also, I’ve got to not get too far ahead of myself and make sure that I listen to myself and listen to my body.”
Day finished up with a dazzling final round of 62 to win the Byron Nelson, but felt that, given his patchwork preparations, “survival” could be the order of the day in Thursday’s opening round.
“It’s going to be more of playing to the centre of the green, putt to the pin locations, grab your birdies when you can and then just kind of survive,” he shrugged.
Meanwhile, Jordan Spieth has completed another nine holes of practice at Oak Hill and says his left wrist feels good enough to play in the PGA Championship, and good enough that he won’t rule out his chances of a career grand slam.
That’s a big leap from a week ago, when he wasn’t sure he could make it to New York.
“I wouldn’t play if I didn’t think I was in good enough shape to play,” he said after playing the front nine with Justin Thomas and Tom Kim on Wednesday.
“I just don’t have the reps I’d like to have going into a major. But I’m happy I’m able to play because I surely didn’t think that a week ago.”
Spieth missed the cut at the Wells Fargo Championship and then withdrew from his hometown AT&T Byron Nelson in the Dallas area because of a wrist injury that required rest.
The timing is not good for the 29-year-old Spieth, and not just because it’s a major. The PGA Championship is the only major keeping him from becoming the sixth player to complete the career grand slam.
Tiger Woods was the last player with the career slam in 2000.
Spieth said in a text message on Sunday that he was still 50-50 about playing, seeing how it handled the thick rough framing of the fairways at Oak Hill.
That didn’t seem to be an issue when he played the back nine on Tuesday, and then had an afternoon start to see the front nine on the eve of the PGA Championship.
He said the shots that can be uncomfortable are “anything I have to flick over, like a high bunker shot or a high flop shot.”
The bigger concern might be Oak Hill, which is hosting its seventh major and has long had a reputation for being one of the strongest tests. The rough is thick and makes it difficult to advance shots to the green. The bunkers have been restored to make lips supremely steep.
“There’s nothing that separates this from a US Open,” Spieth said. “This is a US Open. The fairways are firm, narrow, and the rough is thick. As far as difficulty, it feels like a U.S. Open course. Par is a nice score.”
Spieth said he wouldn’t be playing if he didn’t think he could win.
“It’s not fun if you don’t think you have a chance to win,” he said. “If I felt like I was limited in a way that would affect my chances, then there would be no reason for me to feel like playing. Because then I would do further damage and it wouldn’t be worth it.”
Brooks Koepka hopes he will learn from “choking” at the Masters as he bids to win a fifth major title in the 105th US PGA Championship.
Koepka shared the lead after an opening 65 at Augusta National and was four shots clear of eventual winner Jon Rahm when play was suspended due to bad weather in the third round.
That lead was immediately halved when play resumed on the final day, Koepka returning to the course and missing a par putt on the seventh as playing partner Rahm birdied the same hole.
Rahm went on to win his second major title by four shots and Koepka told the Pardon My Take podcast: “Yeah, I’d characterise that as a choke.
“It was pretty bad. I mean, c’mon. You’ve got a four-shot lead. I was playing good and just choked it away. But it’s alright, we’ll figure it out.
Asked about those comments on Wednesday at Oak Hill on the eve of the tournament, Koepka initially said he was “just messing around” with the podcast hosts, but added: “It is choking, right? If you have a lead and cough it up, that’s choking.
“But at the same time, I’m not dwelling on it. I’ve been in the lead, in that position a couple of times and haven’t capitalised. I can’t do it every single time. I’m not perfect. As long as I can learn from it, I’ll be better off from it.”
Koepka admitted he did not sleep on the Sunday evening of the Masters as he reflected on his closing 75, a round which took the final pair almost five hours to complete.
The former world No.1 hit out at the “brutally slow” pace of play of the penultimate group, with Patrick Cantlay widely held to be responsible for the slow going.
Koepka believes that handing out penalty shots is the only solution.
“Honestly, I would start stroking guys,” he said. “If you are going to take that long, you have to get stroked.
“There are certain circumstances where the wind switches, something like that, it’s understandable, but taking a while is, I just think, unnecessary.”