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It’s amazing the, the journey - it’s amazing the journey that you take in life.
Just to be able to look back on it and just talk about it.
If my father was here I wouldn’t be here.
If my dad was alive, there’s no chance I would have been on the PGA tour.
Absolutely none.
It was just an opportunity that was from an unfortunate thing that happened to me,
a tragedy that happened to me,
but changed my life for the better.
Music
Beaudesert, Queensland, Australia
at the time when I was born it was I think the population was about three thousand people.
I grew up on a farm. Uh, we raised cattle and sheared sheep, so we were very poor.
My dad and myself and you know my family would go to the rubbish dip, like just landfill. Get furniture, or stuff that we could use around the house
and found golf club one day, when I was three, and my dad gave it to me and I hit the ball
you know, it was a tennis ball at the time - but I hit the ball was a three-wooder. I cut down three-wood.
And uh, I hit it and he turned around to my mom and said, ‘This guy’s going to be a champion one day.’
I loved the game.
But I was kind of forced into it a little bit.
My dad would take me down to the golf course every afternoon.
Beaudesert Country Club, which is not a country club, it’s country, and I would stay there
from whenever I got off school to when it got dark, and that’s what I did every single day.
As a kid I started out and I’m like, ‘Yeah, this is great.’ I’m playing golf and enjoying it.
But then once I started winning bigger tournaments it helped a lot.
I got addicted to the process of getting better
In 2000
Jason’s father gets sick
and everything changed.
When he passed on, the connection got cut,
and he was so lost that that’s when he started drinking.
He went out of the rails.
And uh.
and it was hard for me to see him wasting his talent.
And he couldn’t care.
I walked in there and my dad was, like he was not even alive. He was, he, you know, he was just laying there.
Still, nothing, wasn’t breathing, anything and I, I mean I just remember sitting there watching him.
Um and I couldn’t say a word. I mean I just..
I mean what do you, what do you say when you’re twelve years old and you lose your dad? So, it’s too hard, I mean it’s…
That’s when I started getting into trouble, started drinking a little bit. Started getting in fights.
My sister ran away from home for four years.
She was living on the streets, I mean like I didn’t know where she was.
She’d come back and she was just, I mean, my mom was trying her hardest
and she was always the one, when we got disciplined, she was always the one to hold us.
So it was hard for her to become a disciplinary person.
We kind of went a little crazy and
that’s when my mom decided to go, ‘You have a gift, and what do you think about going to Kooralbyn?’
When my husband died there was a little bit of money.
I had to ask the girls
if they can forego their college.
And what I did is I put Jason in Kooralbyn.
I’m amazed that Jason survived the system.
When you lose a dad, your mum mortgages the house
should be done.
You’re not gonna succeed at sport. That’s what happens.
You just disappear into the tapestry of sport.
You are like a kid that showed some talent.
For him to find Colin at that time, for Colin to be the right guy, and for him to trust him…
Some people get a lot of lifelines; he got one.
I mean he’s a life changer. He’s a life - the reason why I’m here is because of that guy. Is because of Colin.
He’s supported me ever since I was twelve years old, all the way through til I’m nearly twenty-eight now.
The first time I sat down with Jason, I saw a kid that was genuinely hungry; he wanted it and more importantly he needed it.
You know, not to let his sisters down, not to let his mum down, and to a certain degree, not to let his dad down.
I think that was a motivator for him to be able to say
‘Look this is an opportunity of a lifetime, I’ve got to take this.’
He threw himself, you know, mind, body, and soul, into...
practice and wanting to be the best in the world from such a young age.
Jason came to me and he said, ‘You’re waking up the earliest, I wanna room with you.’
And he, yeah, he came and roomed with me and we got up before everyone and we were on that night range and the last ones to leave
and he did that for a lot longer than I did that (laughs).
I, I worked harder than everyone else in my golf academy. Got up at five o’clock every morning and I took pride in that
just because I knew that I could outwork everyone else here...and they had no chance.
Every time, in my head, I would play this little visual:
I’d walk onto the green and everyone would be going, ‘Ah, Jason’s here. Who’s playing for second place?’
And as time went on, as an amateur I still had that
as a professional you’re playing against peers, you’re playing against guys that are pros, you’re playing against the best players in the world
and I kinda lost that.
I think he really struggled to feel that he’d earned the right to win, early.
You know, where I thought he was good enough to compete
He kinda gave up at tournaments, and he’d get a bad attitude and he’s throw clubs, and he’d - you’d hear him cussing on the golf course
and um, and then I don’t know from - those next couple years were just a huge learning experience for him, I think.
Because he was just used to winning all the time and then came out and it was, it was hard.
There’s two ways to go about a career like this.
You can go, OK there’s too much pressure, you know, I’m on the border of doing something really good, really great right now.
There’s two ways of handling it.It’s like, OK I can just kind of jump on my horse and trot into the sunset, go on my merry way and be happy with where I’m at.
And then there’s the other way where you get up off your butt and you walk towards the fear.
Whether that’s being number one in the world, whether that’s going places and you getting recognized everywhere you go.
It was never really about signing contracts, making money.
When we sat down that first day, it was about being the best player in the world, and that was his goal.
I think Jason sets the bar high; he and Col game plan to be the best.
He is in the zone, and he’s unreachable, untouchable, unreal.
He has worked harder than I’ve ever seen him.
I mean he’s committed, he’s committed more in every part of his life.
He deserves everything that he’s getting. So it’s really cool to see everything pay off that he’s worked hard for.
Sometimes I look back and say that it was a predetermined fate for Jason, because he made it happen.
He was so determined, even when he was young.
Doesn’t matter what you have, if you have your dream and you learn to overcome all the hurdles, you’re going to reach it.
Without golf I wouldn’t have the people I have in my life
I wouldn’t have Colin, I wouldn’t have Bud, I wouldn’t have Ellie
I wouldn’t have my son Dash, I’ve got another one on the way. I wouldn’t meet these people.
And I owe it to, not only to golf, but to them as well to work as hard as I can.
People ask me all the time, you know, what are you most proud of with Jase?
And I say, he’s a great dad, he’s a great husband to Ellie, and it’s those things that I’m most proud of.
Twelve years ago he could have, you know, run off with his mates and got drunk every night. He could have easily taken that track.
There is a new number one in golf and for the first time Jason Day is on top of the world.
There’s no story to me; there’s million of [histories] trying to get to a certain point in life
and all I want to do in life is just work as hard as I can
try to win as much as I can before my time is over
and to really show people, young kids, adults, whoever
Never Say Die. My dad used to always say: ‘never say die.’