It’s been an emotional week for Jason Day and his family. Just moments after withdrawing from the WGC-Dell Match Play last Wednesday, Day stepped into the media center and shared with the world that his mother was battling cancer. Since her surgery on Friday the prognosis has been positive, however, Day’s playing schedule, including his plans for the Masters are still up in the air. While he expects to travel to Augusta on Friday to prep for the year’s first major, teeing it up on that Thursday will be a game-time decision.
“Obviously, I’m still nervous because we’re still waiting to see … if it has spread or not,” said Day, who spoke Monday by video conference set up by organizers of the PGA Tour’s Zurich Classic according to an AP report. “From there, we have to kind of come up with a game plan whether to go chemo – a form of chemo radiation – or something else.
“It’s still kind of a bit of an emotional time for me,” added Day, whose father died of cancer when he was 12. ‘”Obviously, I’ve been hanging out with my mom a bit and seeing her and she’s recovering well. She’s a tough lady, but it’s hard because I look at her and she’s on the pain killers and all that stuff, what she needs to do to recover.
“But I can’t help but think of my dad when I see her in that situation because when they go through such a traumatic surgery like that it just can be tough.”
Jason Day is going to prepare at Augusta, but his playing status for #TheMasters is still up in the air: https://t.co/DfZHdyEOTA pic.twitter.com/eruERTUKAt
— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) March 27, 2017
Day said Monday that doctors deemed the surgery successful, and now the family awaits results of tests to see if the cancer still remains.
“My mom told me not to worry about it,” Day said. “It’s hard to do that. It’s easy to say … but it’s really, really difficult. So currently I’m scheduled to play Augusta … but if things don’t come back the way we want them, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Day said he “hasn’t touched a golf club at all” since joining his mother in Ohio last week after his WGC WD.
“It’s very, very difficult to even think about playing golf when a loved one is going through such a traumatic experience,” Day said. “Once I get past this initial stage, hopefully I’ll find some balance and I’ll be able to kind of move on and really focus on getting my game back.
“Unfortunately, I’m human. I like to feel like I’m always on it, I’m always … ready to go and trying to compete and I want to get back to that stage but sometimes it’s very, very difficult.”
[AP]
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