OAKMONT, Pa, (AP) Jason Day picked a funny way to put the rest of the field on notice.
Judging by the overheated headlines about his health in some golf outlets recently, you'd think Day was in a fight for his life. In truth, he's simply shaking off a cold he likely caught from his father-in-law two weeks ago. That kind of scrutiny, as well as the stress, is part of the rarefied spot Day holds in the game at the moment.
Good thing, too, since alibis will be tough to come by for the 28-year-old Australian. It's not just that Day hits the ball straight and high and has been putting like a pool hustler for the better part of a year - requisites for any U.S. Open setup. On top of that, he's been arguably the hottest golfer at the U.S. Open over the last five years.
Last July, even battling a case of vertigo that caused him to collapse at the end of his second round, Day managed to bring home a second-place finish at Chambers Bay.
The payoff for that lesson wasn't long in coming. After holding a share of the 54-hole lead at that Open, as well as at the British Open a month later, Day finally cashed one in at the PGA Championship the month after that. Strangely enough, he ranked the final round of his breakthrough first major at Whistling Straits last August as the previously ''most stressful'' juncture of his golfing career. And he's not banking on it being any easier on Oakmont's punishing layout.
''We got tough rough. The greens are tough. Practically the whole course is tough,'' he said.
Despite that description, Day has a soft spot for the course. His agent, Bud Martin, lives nearby and he played Oakmont for the first time at 18.
''Almost feels like home,'' he said, though Day could say the same about most U.S. Open venues.
''When I was a kid, I'd hit it everywhere ... and when I hit it everywhere, I had a short game to save me. I needed to - if I didn't have a short game, I would shoot over par, and I'd play bad. If I had my short game, I'd shoot under par somehow, even though I was hitting in the trees and hitting it everywhere.