After splitting with his longtime coach earlier this year, the former no. 1st-ranked golfer Jason Day reaches out to another player he believes can help him understand his back problems: Tiger Woods.
Woods, who successfully returned from spinal fusion surgery in 2017, spent nearly a month talking to Day about ways to deal with the back problems both players face.
“It’s more about the process of changing my swing to reduce back pain,” Day said Wednesday at Olympia Fields (Illinois) Golf Club, site of this week’s BMW Championship. ” I know his back is much worse than what’s mine, I’ve never had major procedures on my back like he has, so I’m in a better situation there.
“Right now, right now, I’m talking to him about certain positions in golf swing to help me kind of make sure my swing doesn’t go any further than what it is now. I’m trying to work on some things where Tiger and I talked about it. ‘
Day currently ranks 35th in the world and is 50th in the FedEx Cup standings, meaning he needs a big week to advance to next week’s Tour Championship. Earlier this year, he had slipped outside the top 60 in the world. He has not won more than two years since the Wells Fargo Championship in 2018.
In July, Day split with his Australian longtime coach Colin Swatton – who has worked with Day since he was a teenager – in an attempt to go it alone. He has had good results since then, with four consecutive top-10s including a draw for fourth at the PGA Championship. He missed the cut last week at the Northern Trust.
“Jason and I have had a great relationship for a very long time because he’s been on tour. And we’ve talked about a number of things, and of course one of the topics we’re tending to talk about. “We both have bad backs now and mine is a little more advanced than his, trying to treat it, trying to control it, and the evolution of the swing,” Woods said. “We can not do what we used to do, and how do you evolve that and are you still effective. But also recovery of day. Recovery techniques have changed over the years, and removal protocols have changed.
“There’s a lot to do with it, but the swing evolves, it changes. You can only swing the club as the body allows you to do, and I know from the first hand of all my nine previous procedures that “I used to do it to my body. It’s just one of the things that wears us out as we get older.”
Day said that all this is an attempt for him to get his game back to No. 1.
“Since me and Col ran apart, I stretched him out [Woods] and started chatting with him about the swing, ‘Day said. “Of course someone who has won 82 times needs to listen to you kind of. Every swing I have on my phone is myself like Tiger’s swing, so when I get a Tiger swing from my friends, I send it. directly to him and then we will talk about the swing. “
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