Jason Day plays 14th Open Championship and 59th major
Jason Day during practice earlier this week – image R&A
This week, Australian Jason Day will play his 14th Open Championship, 16 years after receiving a late call-up to his first at St Andrews in 2010, which was his first-ever major championship appearance.
In his previous 13 starts through this week, Day has missed only three cuts, been runner-up once, and finished 4th once.
In 2015, he finished just one shot out of the playoff between the winner, Zach Johnson, Australian Marc Leishman, and Louis Oosthuisen and in 2013, he finished tied for second with Tom Kim, Sepp Straka and Jon Rahm behind Brian Harman in horror conditions at Royal Liverpool.
Day’s most recent form has again been plagued by injury issues, the now 38-year-old being forced to withdraw from the recent US Open and struggling in recent weeks to find the sort of form that has seen him runner-up in all four of the major championships in his stellar career, where he has amassed PGA Tour earnings, alone, of US$67 million.
Given the ongoing struggles he has had with back injury issues and that he is also the father of five children with wife Ellie, his career, which has included the PGA Championship title and 51 weeks as the world number one, has been one of huge success, but there is little doubt that despite his achievements, he has perhaps not reached the heights many felt he might have.
This week, he gets another chance in what will be his 59th major appearance (in addition to the two he was forced to withdraw from), and recorded ten top five finishes.
So the Queenslander will lack nothing in experience, but the issue for Day at present is just how his back will hold up and whether his current form is good enough to contend for a title he has gone close to winning previously.
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