After breaking up with his longtime coach earlier this year, former # 1 golfer Jason Day has reached out to another player who he believes can help him understand his back problems: Tiger Woods.
Woods, who successfully returned from spinal fusion surgery in 2017, talked with Day for about a month about ways to address the back problems both players face.
“It’s more about the process of modifying my swing to relieve back pain,” Day said Wednesday at Olympia Fields (Illinois) Golf Club, home to this week’s BMW championship. “I know his back is a lot worse than mine is. I’ve never had major back procedures like him, so I’m in a better situation there.
“Right now, I’m talking to him about some positions in the golf swing to help me make sure my swing doesn’t go beyond what it is now. I’ve been trying to work on some of the things Tiger and I have been talking about.” ‘
Day is currently ranked 35th in the world and is 50th on the FedEx Cup rankings, meaning he needs a great week to move up to next week’s Tour Championship. Earlier this year he had slipped out of the top 60 in the world. He hasn’t won in more than two years, since the 2018 Wells Fargo Championship.
In July, Day split from his Australian coach Colin Swatton – who had worked with Day since he was a teenager – in an attempt to try to do it on his own. He has since performed well, with four consecutive top-10s including a draw for fourth place in the PGA championship. He missed the cut last week at the Northern Trust.
“Jason and I have had a great relationship for a long time, since he’s been on tour. And we’ve talked about a number of things, and obviously one of the topics we tend to talk about because we both have bad backs now and mine is a little more advanced than his, he’s trying to deal with it, trying to manage it and the evolution of the swing, ” Woods said. “We can’t do what we did before, and how you evolve it and you’re still effective. But also daily recovery. Recovery techniques have changed over the years and lifting protocols have changed.
“So it has a lot to do with that, but the swing evolves, changes. You can swing the club only as your body allows you to, and I know this firsthand from all of my previous nine procedures I’ve had at my body. It’s just one of those things that wear things out as we get older.
Day said all of this is an effort for him to bring his game back to number 1.
“Ever since Col and I broke up, I’ve contacted him [Woods] and started talking to him about the swing, ” Day said. “Obviously someone who has won 82 times, you have to listen. Every swing I have on my phone is myself or Tiger’s swing, so every time I get a swing of Tiger to my friends, I send it straight to him and then we talk about the swing. ”
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