Jason Day

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Jason Day (born 12 November 1987) is a part-Filipino Australian professional golfer.

Day was born in Beaudesert, Queensland. His father took him to Beaudesert Golf Club and joined him as a junior member just past his sixth birthday. He was allowed to play six holes a day as a junior. At the age of eight his family moved to Rockhampton and during this period he began to win events in the surrounding districts. His father died when he was just 12 and he had a period where he was "lost".

Day's mother sent him to school at Koorlbyn, just a 30 minute drive south of Beaudesert. The Kooralbyn International School has a golf course attached. Later he was to go to Hills International College where they have a Golf Academy^[1] at the behest of his coach, Col Swatton, who had moved there when Kooralbyn school closed down.

Day borrowed a book about Tiger Woods from his roommate and was inspired, by it, to improve his golf by practicing in the early morning, at lunch-time and in the evening. He used the book's reports of Tiger's score as his benchmark for improvement and as a reachable standard. His first big win was at the age of 13 in a 2000 Australian Masters junior event on the Gold Coast where he won with scores of 87, 78, 76 and 76.^[2]

As an amateur Day accumulated a great deal of success in Australia, twice being awarded the Australian Junior Order of Merit. He finished seventh and was the leading amateur at the Queensland Open Championship. His amateur success extended to the United States where he won the Boys 15–17 division at the 2004 Callaway World Junior Championship and was runner-up in the 2005 Porter Cup.^[3]

Day turned pro in July 2006 after winning the Green Jacket at the NEC Master of the Amateurs, signing with TaylorMade and adidas^[4] and immediately began playing PGA Tour events, principally through sponsors' exemptions. He made the cut in five of his first six PGA Tour events as a pro with a best finish of eleventh at the Reno-Tahoe Open and with official winnings of over $160,000. He entered PGA Tour qualifying, or Q-School. Placed in the second of three rounds, he tied for first in his section of the second round, advancing to the Q-School finals. However, in the six-round finals he played poorly, shooting fifteen shots higher than the score needed to qualify. Accordingly, he failed to earn his 2007 PGA Tour card but earned conditional status on the Nationwide Tour for 2007.

Day won his first Nationwide Tour event in July 2007 at the Legend Financial Group Classic, becoming the youngest man to win on any of the PGA Tour's three tours.^[5] The win jumped him to eighth on the Nationwide Tour's money list. He ended up finishing 5th on the money list to earn his PGA Tour card for 2008.