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There are so many storylines swirling around the Lake Forest fairways that it is hard to know where to start. Arguably the most intriguing \u2013 away from the tournament scoreboard and FedExCup configurations \u2013 is that surrounding former world number Jason Day. <\/p>\n
The 29-year-old Australian was playing for the first time since making a caddie change, sacking his childhood mentor, coach since he was 12 and now ex long-time bagman Col Swatton for an old golf academy mate, Luke Reardon.<\/p>\n
The shock move followed two other highly publicised recent player-caddie splits: Phil Mickelson and Jim \u201cBones\u201d Mackay (after 25 years together) and Rory McIlroy and J.P. Fitzgerald (nine years). Mickelson and McIlroy each have just one top-10 place since making the change but Day, who has dropped to ninth in the world rankings and hasn\u2019t won since last year, can\u2019t afford the same luxury if he is to keep his season going: at 28th on the FedExCup points list, he needs a good finish to secure a place among the top-30 qualifying for next week\u2019s Tour Championship grand finale. <\/p>\n
He made an excellent start. \u201cYou never know whether you\u2019re going to jell well or not at all,\u201d Day said after making six birdies and an eagle, and one bogey, despite dealing with a sore back. \u201c[Reardon] is one of my best mates, but we\u2019ll be on the course together and I could completely hate him as a caddie. You don\u2019t know until you actually do it\u2026 Luke did a fantastic job out there today. I know that he\u2019s a good golfer, got a good, keen eye for the golf IQ, more-so with the actual course management. I think it was a good start.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n
On the eve of the tournament, Day had revealed to the press that\u00a0Swanton was shocked and disappointed.\u00a0\u201cHe needed some time just going over things and really understand my feelings and what I wanted to try to accomplish in my career as a player, and then obviously trying to get his feelings as well,\u201d Day said. \u201cIt\u2019s always hard because we\u2019ve been a team for so long. We\u2019ve been really tight and being so close for very long and we\u2019re still close.\u201d <\/p>\n
Day said the chemistry between the two as player and caddie had begun to sour as his game floundered, with just four top-10s this season through the Dell Technologies Championship.<\/p>\n
Day found himself blaming Swatton for things the caddie couldn\u2019t control, and they started to not talk to each other away from tournaments \u2013 thus putting their close relationship at risk.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything is great when you win, but when you\u2019re playing poorly, that\u2019s when a true test of a relationship actually happens between a player and a caddie,\u201d Day said. \u201cIt\u2019s more my fault, really, because he\u2019s out there trying to do the best job he can and, unfortunately, sometimes it just doesn\u2019t work out no matter how hard he works. The positive vibes and the positives he\u2019s trying to put out and all the numbers that he can get and information he can get sometimes just doesn\u2019t work out.\u201d <\/p>\n
Day stressed that Swatton was \u201cnot out of my world one bit\u2026 He\u2019s always going to be my coach, always will, unless he gets paid more somewhere else. I\u2019m planning on trying to keep him around. I don\u2019t want anyone else to get coached by him because he\u2019s a really good coach.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the plan was for Reardon to be a long-term solution, although he didn\u2019t rule out the possibility of re-hiring Swatton. \u201cIt may be somewhere down the road where four months from now \u2013 I don\u2019t even know how long it will be \u2013 but I can come back to him and say, \u2018Look, man, I made a mistake and I need to come back and have you on the bag.\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, I know there\u2019s a relationship there and me and him have been inseparable since the day I came out. Once again, he\u2019s my coach and always will be. I love him so much. I just want to make sure I did the right thing. Obviously, when you let go of someone sometimes it\u2019s hard, but there\u2019s been a lot going this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u00a0<\/p>\n
So to the tournament itself<\/strong>\u2026 Fellow Australian Marc Leishman led the way after the first day with a nine-under 62, two shots ahead of joint second-placed Day.<\/p>\n Leishman has a putting green in his backyard in Virginia and he mows it religiously. It\u2019s cathartic for him, mowing tight, clean stripes in the Bermuda grass. \u201cI almost like doing that more than I like playing on it. My neighbor thinks I\u2019m crazy. I\u2019m out there every day.\u201d <\/p>\n Leishman\u2019s form on the greens has been topsy-turvy this year. The 33-year-old putted well early, winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational for his second tour victory, but then hit a lull. \u201cI have a tendency to push the putter into the ground. My coach (Denis McDade) picked it up and I started making putts again.\u201d <\/p>\n After finishing third at the Dell Technologies Championship at TPC Boston, Leishman didn\u2019t touch a club last week. He came to Conway Farms feeling fresh, and got off to a great start with seven birdies in his first 11 holes. He thought about the prospect of shooting 59, but pushed it to the back of his mind. \u201cWhen you start thinking about the score before you finish,\u201d he said, \u201cthat generally doesn\u2019t end well.\u201d <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n As for the tournament within a tournament<\/strong>\u2026 The top-30 in the FedExCup after this week will have a mathematical shot at the $10 million bonus, but the odds are significantly higher depending on their position in the standings. The top five players \u2013 Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Dustin Johnson are already assured that position \u2013 would only have to win at East Lake to claim golf\u2019s richest prize. <\/p>\n Paired with his two immediate rivals, Spieth carded a 65, while Thomas shot a four-under 67 while Johnson fought hard for an even-par 71.<\/p>\n Currently fourth in the standings, Hideki Matsuyama carded an opening one-over 72, while fifth-placed Jon Rahm had a 69 for a share of 36th place in the 70-player field.<\/p>\n Players facing an exit from the finals series after this week\u2019s tournament, unless they shoot particularly low in the second round, include last year\u2019s FedExCup champion Rory McIlroy (72), Sergio Garcia (68) and Henrik Stenson (72).<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are so many storylines swirling around the Lake Forest fairways that it is hard to know where to start. Arguably the most intriguing \u2013 away from the tournament scoreboard and FedExCup configurations \u2013 is that surrounding former world number Jason Day. The 29-year-old Australian was playing for the first time since making a caddie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":7441,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}