Eight years later, former world No. 1 Jason Day opens up on a career regret

Jason Day is dreaming of 2028. And 2032. Wouldn’t that be something? An Olympic golf tournament four years from now in L.A. Tinseltown. And a medal chance four years later in Brisbane, Australia, his home country. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! 

Min Woo Lee then tried to wake him up. 

“Will you still be playing?” the 26-year-old cheekily asked. 

“How far is that away?” Day responded. “Eight years?”

“Fifty-four,” Lee responded, seemingly guessing at Day’s age in 2032.

“I’m the old man on the team apparently,” Day deduced. 

As the duo talked Tuesday at Le Golf National ahead of this year’s Olympic tourney, there were a few things going on. For one, Day was right, when compared to men’s teammate Lee, or women’s teammates Hannah Green (age 27) and Minjee Lee (age 28 and Min Woo’s sister), though Lee was off by a solid decade — Day is 36 now and will be 44 when Brisbane rolls around. But all of this frivolousness illustrates a larger point. Was that really Jason Day going back-and-forth with a mate? It was. Was that really Jason Day wondering about more Games? It was. If you were curious at all about this event’s pulse in its third go-around since being brought back to the Olympics, there were your answers. 

There was this, too:  

The man who once wasn’t so hot for the Olympics said he regrets skipping out in 2016. 

At the time, Day had cited a Zika virus scare in Rio de Janeiro for his decision, and others had too. But the 2015 PGA Championship winner and former world No. 1 said he should’ve played. Failure to qualify for the Games in 2021 fanned that thought.    

“I know in 2016, looking back on it, I’ve said it before, where there was some regret, obviously, not going down,” Day said. “At the time, I think I was like No. 1 or 2 in the world and I think I was like to a point where I was kind of burnt out, and the last thing on my mind was representing Australia in the Olympics.

“Looking back on it, I should’ve just sucked it up and gone down and played. I think in that case, it would have been a great experience for me to go down there and represent something that’s bigger than you, you know what I mean.

“And then obviously when it came to Tokyo, that was one Games — Japan is one of my favorite countries to go visit. I had some injuries and stuff, and obviously Cam [Smith] and Marc [Leishman] were ranked higher than me. To be able to play my way into it — now, granted, we’re from a pretty small country. It’s not like if I was representing America; it’s very difficult because there’s so many good players there. I just felt that if I could just play half-decent at some point, I would be able to get back on the team.”

So what flipped?

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Burn-out had been a clear concern for Day; he also raised it at the U.S. Open that year before pulling out of the Games. Over about a 13-month stretch, he’d won eight times, and with it came demands he wasn’t used to. “After a while,” Day said, “you can only give out so much of yourself before you go — you pull the brakes and you’re saying, I’m not doing that anymore.”

That all being said, did you happen to catch the Olympic judo?

Day did Monday. 

It actually summed up nicely how he arrived at his newfound Olympic appreciation point. 

“I think if you would have asked me in 2016 [about the importance of Olympic golf], I would have given you a politically correct answer, even though I thought differently,” Day said. “Just because growing up, even though I respected the Olympic athletes and the Olympics itself, golf was never a part of it. Early 1900s, it was part of it really, really, quickly. It was something I grew up watching but never thought that I would ever play as an Olympic athlete and was just never on the radar. At that time, like I said in 2016, I was at a point in my career that I was like, I’m kind of done playing golf in my career right now because I got to a point where I was burnt out.

“Now, watching judo and some of the women compete yesterday, and the true emotions of what they go through when they lose, and watching some of these women break down, showing how much it actually means, not only to represent their country but like to try and win a medal — because to them, this is their biggest tournament of the year, if not every four years, and this means so much more to them.

“For us, we can play a tournament next week if we want to, so it just keeps rolling over. To watch an athlete go through that emotion of trying to overcome a loss or overcome winning for the first time, winning a medal for the first time, is very inspiring to watch. So it definitely has changed the way that I view golf in the Olympics, and that’s why I’m very thankful for the opportunity to be able to compete here this week.”

But can he win?

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Day’s letting himself at least think about it. They play these once every four years, you know. 

And by Lee’s math, Day ain’t getting younger, either. 

“Like looking back on it one day — to be honest, before I came over, like all my mates were like, dude, you’re an Olympic athlete,” Day said. “They kept saying it. I’m like, man, whatever, that’s fine.

“Now after they kept saying it, I can understand how important and cool it is to be able to call yourself an Olympic athlete because once you’re an Olympic athlete, you’re always an Olympic athlete. To have the opportunity to win a medal is very exciting to think about.”