After strong week at QBE Shootout, Jason Day says ‘the next step is to go out there and win and win more often’

It’s part of the PGA Tour’s “silly season” and the QBE Shootout is also a team event, but his performance there appeared to provide Jason Day with some hope.

His tie for third—alongside Marc Leishman—at Tiburon Golf Club was by far his best finish in four events in the 2021-22 season. It’s his best finish anywhere since he won The Challenge: Japan Skins more than two years ago. His last official Tour victory was at the Wells Fargo Championship in May of 2018.

So it’s been a while.

Last season, Day finished T-44 at the PGA Championship but missed the cut at the Masters and the British Open. He missed the U.S. Open altogether after not qualifying, making it the first major he missed since the 2012 Open.

During the 54-hole QBE Shootout, Day and Leishman led after each of the first two rounds before settling for a tie for third.

“It was nice to be able to come into a week like this and try a few things with my swing,” Day said. “Even though it’s competitive rounds, I can get in there and see how the changes are going. Playing with Leish is always fun. We’ve been good mates for a while now and it was a nice way to end the year.”

Day will also be looking for a nice way to start next year. In the ongoing quest for his 13th career Tour win, Day has battled back issues time and again but he sounds confident he’s close with his health and with his swing.

“It’s still not 100 percent. Obviously every day I come off and I’m just a little bit in pain still because it’s just not quite, it’s hard,” he said on Sunday. “Like, I’m standing out there and I’m trying to get my left hip back and cover it with the ball, I feel like it’s going to go 50 left and then I kind of dump it back underneath, which is the old move and it’s no good for me. There was some really good shots mixed in with some kind of old stuff. It’s making a slow move to the correct stuff, but yeah, I think overall I was very pleased how the week went. Obviously to have the year that I had and then obviously coming in this week with the work that I did last week, I think things are improving.”

Day hasn’t set his tournament schedule for the first part of 2022 yet but has his eye on a few events.

“I’ll probably play some on the west coast, I just don’t really know right now. I’m going to take some time off and then really try and work these swing changes out and hopefully come into the new year, start playing some better golf.

“The only thing that takes care of it is winning, so I’m really trying to focus on trying to get back to getting my game in a spot where I’m confident and then the next step is to go out there and win and win more often. That’s one thing that I’m trying to accomplish this next coming year,” he said. “I feel pretty happy with how things are progressing. I’ve just got to keep working on it and just be patient with it and let things kind of unfold on themselves and hopefully through the patience I get that nice delayed gratification and I start showing some good results here soon.”