Hayes: Jason Day can deal with worst of times

AUGUSTA, Ga. - When injury and illness strike, few athletes have the heart to match their talent. A strapping frame, a powerful swing and deft touch around the greens might be the most modest weapons in Jason Day's arsenal.

A childhood marred by abuse and poverty combined to make Day, 28, virtually impervious to injury. His iron will draws comparisons to Tiger Woods and Derek Jeter.

Two weeks ago the bulging disc in Day's back flared up. No matter: He still won the WGC Match Play, which earned him the No. 1 world ranking as he enters his sixth Masters.

Healthy or hurt, bet against him at your peril.

"He is, in a sense, a perfect animal for responding as favorably as you could imagine in that situation, from his background," Dr. Fran Pirozzolo said.

Pirozzolo has been a team psychologist for the Yankees, Astros, Tigers and, now, the Texas Rangers, as well as the Houston Texans and several college golf teams. Day hired him in 2011. Pirozzolo was on Day's bus on the eve of the 2011 Masters, when Day nearly quit the game. Day said that Pirozzolo was part of the group that convinced him to continue playing.

Citing confidentiality restrictions, neither Pirozzolo nor Neale Smith, who also once served as Day's mental coach, would discuss Day's specific idiosyncrasies. Neither still works with Day, but, Pirozzolo said, he and Day remain friends. During their time together, Pirozzolo analyzed everything from Day's near-misses on the course to his nearly unbearable childhood.

On the chat show Feherty last week, Day revealed how his father, Alvin, often would severely beat him after poor performances while he was growing up in Australia. Sometimes the beatings took place on the course, where Alvin would knock Jason unconscious. Other parents looked away. Day's father died of cancer when Day was 12.

Day said on the show that his father's abuse might have helped his rise to the No. 1 world ranking. Certainly, perhaps thanks to such a traumatic childhood, Day has an amazing ability to play under duress.

"We've done research on the kind of people who survive certain kinds of threats. The studies reveal the kind of people who survive a lot of abuse - if it doesn't kill them, it makes them better. It's certainly in evidence here," Pirozzolo said. "I would point to how magnificent the human brain is as an adaptive tool. It enables us to do extraordinary things, respond to unbelievable challenges.

"Jason is at the top of that list."

He's on top of that list, and the world golf rankings, because, at the WGC, he ignored his back pain during his second of a seven-match run.

He overcame a violent bout of vertigo at the U.S. Open last year, then survived a lesser attack at the British. He finished ninth at the U.S. Open and missed a playoff at the British by one stroke.

His back flared so badly at The Barclays during the FedEx Cup Playoffs last year he pulled out of the Wednesday pro-am. He won the Barclays.

Pirozzolo compared Day's ability to play hurt to that of Tiger, who won the 2008 U.S. Open on a broken leg. Day's dark good looks and affable manner recall the greatest modern Yankee, who also played well when he was hurting.

"In some sense he's a little bit like Derek Jeter," Pirozzolo said; "A great athlete, who holds himself to a very high standard."

The highest standard, lately. Day won one time in his first eight years as a professional. He has won eight times in the last 26 months and seven times in the last 14 months, including his first major, the PGA Championship.

"Recently, I've mentally and physically wanted it more. To win," said Day, 28. "And that's how it's turned out."

An injury is no more an obstacle than a bunker.

"He sees it as a challenge, more than anything," said Colin Swatton, Day's coach as a schoolboy, his father figure after Day's father died and, now, his caddie. "It would be easy in that moment of adversity to say, 'Ah, (fudge). It's all against me. I've got no chance of winning.' Jason? He sees it as an opportunity."

For a golfer with six wins in his last 13 starts, Day's more memorable images involve moments of duress. Television broadcast live, disturbing images of Day's collapse at the U.S. Open. Day went through a tense, awkward warm-up before his second match two weeks ago. As he loosened his back on the range, Day turned and told Swatton:

"If I can get through today's round, I'll win."

Minutes later, he let fly with a 381-yard drive that rolled onto the first green. He made the eagle putt then rolled to the title. For a poor kid who grew up worried that a bad shot would lead to a beating, what's a little dizziness? What's a bit of back pain?

"I'm sure a lot of it has to do with his upbringing," Swatton said. "He has that ability to dig deep when the chips are down."

Day was hard-wired to believe the chips were always down. Maybe he's more comfortable that way. Perversely, any golfer who is totally fit might try to be too perfect.

"They have high-outcome expectations and a low patience level. A sick or injured athlete just has to manage one play," said Smith, a former world-class athlete himself. "It's that old saying: 'How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.' A sick or injured athlete just has to manage the next play."

Compromised bodies compensate.

"Out of some sort of Darwinian survival instinct, we naturally down-regulate to a more economical use of energy and control of our thoughts and anxieties," Pirozzolo said.

How?

"We don't really know," he said. "The body naturally mobilizes all of its defenses. It activates all sorts of changes in the immense system; neuroscientists estimate that there are as many as 1,400 changes in chemical processes. Then you make a series of physical adaptions. And you don't use a lot of energy."

Whether it's a burglar in your house or Bubba Watson in your head, the reaction is the same.

"The body doesn't really distinguish between someone busting into your home at 3 a.m. and you being in a golf match, three down with four holes to play," Pirozzolo said. "It's the same physiological process.

"But the most powerful force is that you don't worry about the ego needs anymore. You've got an excuse. The fear of failure is absent."

Exactly, said Day.

"If you're injured, you don't pay too much attention to what's going on around you," Day said. "It changes your whole mindset of how you're going to play that day. 'Oh, I'm injured. If I play well, great. If I don't, who cares?' Almost to the point where you're relaxed."

Day this week told the Australian Associated Press that he lost 11 pounds at the Match Play event, but, since his offseason routine nearly cut his body fat in half and added more than 8 pounds of muscle, he was able to soldier on, bad back and all.

Of course, when Day arrived at Augusta on Friday he promptly came down with the flu.

Maybe he caught it on purpose.

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