Jason Day acknowledges that his previous form on his home course at Muirfield Village has been less successful than what he would have wanted, but he aims to turn that around this week at the US PGA Tour's Memorial Tournament outside Columbus, Ohio.
Day and his family live just 25 minutes from the course built by the legendary Jack Nicklaus, but proximity to home has not translated into results for him. He has never finished in the top 25 of the event.
At a media conference today, he said that he had not even played the course this year. "I've played here for many years now. (But) I've been so busy and been on the road so I haven't had the opportunity and the weather has spun out a little bit longer.''
Day, who was runner-up to Billy Horschel in a playoff at the Byron Nelson tournament in Texas at his last start, said his target for this week was to "change the way I usually play around here''.
The Australian, who is third on the world rankings, has not won since the Players Championship in Florida more than 12 months ago. "This has always been one of the toughest stops for me,'' said Day. "Not so much the golf course itself, it's been a hectic week when you're in town and you only live 25 minutes away. I'm interested to see how things go but very excited coming off a good tournament week down at the Byron. Hopefully I can keep the momentum going.''
World No. 10 Adam Scott also is in the field this week after a short break following his tied-sixth in the Players. Scott said he was sticking with his plan which is based around peaking for the majors and the US Tour playoffs.
"It felt like I wanted to go on and play the next week (after Florida) and try and take advantage of the game coming around, but I stayed patient, and went away for a couple of weeks and managed in practice to not fiddle around with it too much and it feels pretty good coming here,'' he said. "So I like where it's at, trying to keep the big picture in mind, obviously wanting to play well into the majors. This has been my plan all year, kind of play into the majors. It went all right at the Masters and I count the Players as a tournament to focus on. I had a good result there so far so good. I'd like to just build on that momentum.''
There are 12 Australians in the field this week, including young professionals Curtis Luck, Brett Coletta and Ryan Ruffels.
Day and Scott, who are playing together, have a late tee time on Thursday (US time).