Should there be a golfing heaven, the late Norman Von Nida would surely be gazing down, tears in his eyes just as those of Jason Day today, and say: “I was wrong.”
For it was The Von who led a chorus of criticism back in 2007 when the just turned 20-year-old Day had the temerity to say during a teleconference organised by Golf Australia for that year’s Open championship that he wanted to “take Tiger down” when he joined the PGA Tour the following year.
With the condemnation still ringing in his ears, Day came to Coolum a week later to apologise that a wrist injury had forced him out of the PGA championship but he was still a “maybe” for the Open the following week – and again he declared his intent bring about the demise of Woods but, as history has proved, Tiger himself has done a pretty good job of that.
And, then Day stuck around for the week. He held a press conference and, far from offering a mea culpa for his remark, he reaffirmed it, saying, “Every golfer wants to achieve and be No 1 in the world. Tiger is the benchmark, he’s the guy to catch.”
South African Rory Sabbatini, no stranger himself to a little controversy through the years, was with us at Coolum that week and threw his 20 cents worth into the ring.
“I think Jason’s going to be one of the fiercest competitors in years to come. I think he’s going to be one of the top players in the world. I think a good question is: Would you raise a kid saying, ‘Listen you can be No 2, you can’t be No 1.’
“I think it is admirable that someone is willing to go out there and say, ‘Yes, I do want to beat him.’ You can’t let Tiger sit at No 1 forever,” Sabbatini said.
I vividly recall Day and his coach/caddie/confidante/father figure Col Swatton standing outside the banquet room where the pre-tournament dinner was being held listening as Swatton and I shared a cigarette.
The former teacher at The Hills Grammar School had given up his job to travel with Day fulltime for he believed in the kid’s future, but along the way he’d had to read him the riot act – not for his assertion that he wanted to be the best – but rather not to act like a dickhead, or words to that effect.
Whispers of Day’s potential grew to a crescendo through the 2000s. In 2004, he won the world junior amateur championship at Torrey Pines to join the likes of Woods, Phil Mickelson and Ernie Els.
Pete Senior saw Day play, as a 16-year-old, in the Queensland PGA championship and reckoned he should turn professional immediately. Others like Wayne Grady suggested it was too soon, but shortly afterwards Day did cash in his amateur status.
In 2007, as a 19-year-old, he won on the secondary Nationwide Tour to become the youngest winner of a PGA Tour sanctioned event.
“At 19, Tiger didn’t win a professional event, so I’m ahead of him there,” Day said in that GA teleconference in late 2007. “The media is building me up … all I want to do is catch Tiger. To be the No 1 golfer in the world, that’s my goal. It’s a matter of hard work to take him down.”
It was an echo of an 18-year-old Aaron Baddeley who’d just won the 1999 Australian Open at Royal Sydney as an amateur who also declared his ambition, indeed destiny, was to be world No 1.
Baddeley’s comment also drew flak – and it was all in the manner of delivery. For Baddeley, it seemed – in my mind anyway – like a boast but with Day it was more a young man speaking of his dreams.
Now, after so many near major misses, Day has his first major championship, surely the first of a fistful and maybe then some more. Like Von Nida, if there is an afterlife, Day’s father Alvin would also be crying tears of joy right now.
When Day was aged three, Alvin came home after a day rummaging around the Beaudesert tip with a driver he’d found. He cut the shaft down and gave it to his son along with a tennis ball. The toddler took an almighty swipe at the ball and Alvin Day turned to his wife Dening and said: “This kid is going to be a champion.”
Thanks to Swatton, but initially to Dening who sold the family home to raise the funds to send her son to the private grammar school with a specialist golf programme on the Gold Coast where Swatton was teaching, Day is now a major champion – and a very humble one at that.