Bill Dwyre, a former sports editor and columnist for the Los Angeles Times, wrote this special report exclusively for NBC 7.
Jason Day is misnamed. There is nothing about him that suggests he is merely a 24-hour wonder.
Monday, he came to media day for the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. That’s traditional. The previous year’s winner comes back to kick off the media coverage of the tournament and his title defense.
In recent years, Bubba Watson has done it. So has Brandt Snedeker and Scott Stallings. All have been great. Well spoken. Excited to climb Torrey Pines’ mountains again. Still glowing from the memory of the previous year’s conquest, not to mention the fat paycheck that came with reaching the summit.
But with the tournament just around the corner, starting Jan. 28, and with the presence of Day in the room, it was clear that the Farmers might have even a little more magic going for it this time around. That’s because of what Day has become. Also, because of how Day handles what he has become.
We measure superstars in golf by both their scorecard and their X-Factor—personality, charisma, an ability to connect to both welcoming fans and skeptical media.
Day has the X-Factor.
Remember, last year’s Farmers was his season jump start. Winning on the PGA Tour is hard enough. Winning five times, including a major title, is a career. Day did that all last year. His victory at the PGA in August, over a Whistling Straits course on the shores of Lake Michigan in Sheboygan, Wis., that is designed to turn scratch golfers into whimpering jello, was not only remarkable, but a gauntlet throw-down for the PGA, its image and its future.
We could easily be looking at the era of Jordan Speith and nobody else.
Or the era of Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy and nobody else.
But when Day muscled his way onto a share of the top step of golf’s victory stand last year, the sport that has been so long hung up and semi-paralyzed while awaiting a Tigers Woods return that will not happen, suddenly has another Big Three.
Did golf flourish during the Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player Big Three days? Ah, yes.
Will golf now flourish in many of the same ways, maybe more, with Speith, McIlroy and Day, each of whom has sent some time now at No. 1 in the world? Ah, yes.
Life can be as strange as a four-putt from ten feet. Day not only gained the kind of public traction you need by superb performances. He also made news on other fronts.
At the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay, a golf course imported to the state of Washington directly from the dark side of the moon, he was in contention much of the way, despite having yet another of his troubling attacks of vertigo. He collapsed on the fairway near the end of Friday’s round and a nation of golf fans gasped. Then he crawled into a trap, somehow got the ball out, somehow finished the round and not only played the next day, but was in the lead going into Sunday. A nation of fans not only gasped, but admired. The golf was a sports page story. Day’s vertigo and recovery was A-1.
Monday, he said his last bout with vertigo had been at last year’s British Open at St. Andrews. He said he didn’t say much about it them, and is hoping for no more recurrences.
“One of the things that triggers it,” he said Monday, “is stress. It’s a good thing I don’t have a job where there is much stress.”
Ah, all this and a sense of humor. Do not think for a moment that that doesn’t play well in the public.
Then there was the LeBron James incident. At a recent NBA game, Day was sitting with his wife, Ellie, at courtside, when James, trying to save a ball headed out of bounds, plowed into Ellie. She was injured, ending up with a concussion. And while Day never made light of it, and knows now that all turned out OK, he also is now able to lighten up on the subject.
“Nothing quite like 6-feet-8-inches and 260 pounds coming at you,” he said, adding that James was very attentive and should receive no blame.
“He was just doing his job,” Day said.
So suddenly, we had the compassionate, story-telling side of Jason Day, as he pointed out the dangers in all sports.
“I hit a 10-year-old boy with a drive here last year,” he said. “The ball went over the adults and hit the shorter boy in the crowd. He was bleeding and crying and I felt terrible. I was shook up. We sent him stuff and I was happy when he was OK.”
Day will not play in this week’s CareerBuilder.Com Open in the Palm Springs Desert. But he will be in the area.
“I kind of make it my base for the West Coast Swing,” he said. “I am at the Vintage Club. I can practice every day. It is usually 75 degrees and no wind. Hard not to like that.”
Hard not to like Jason Day, who, at the moment, is pretty much all news, all the time.
