Jason Day hits from the second tee during the Tournament of Champions golf pro-am, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2016, at Kapalua Plantation Course on Kapalua, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matt York)
KAPALUA, Hawaii— Jason Day fought through symptoms of vertigo to share the 54-hole lead at the U.S. Open in one of gutsiest rounds of the year.
But that wasn’t the end of his vertigo.
Day revealed Wednesday that he had another bout with vertigo during the seven holes he played Saturday in the weather-delayed British Open at St. Andrews.
“It came back, but I didn’t tell anyone about it because it would be a lot more questions that would happen, and it wasn’t as severe,” Day said at Hyundai Tournament of Champions. “I was a little dizzy that day, and it happened the Saturday of The Open Championship. I just kept my mouth shut about it because I knew that it would open another can of worms, and I didn’t want to talk about it.”
Day said he felt better the next day, and his 30-foot putt on the final hole came up short that would have put him in the playoff.
For the next two months, he was tough to beat. Day won the Canadian Open the following week, two weeks later captured his first major at the PGA Championship and then won two FedEx Cup playoff events to reach No. 1 in the world for the first time in his career.
The vertigo first struck on his final hole of the second round at Chambers Bay in the U.S. Open, when he hit his tee shot to the par-3 ninth and then collapsed to the ground. Unsure he could play the next day, he shot 68 was tied for the lead before fading to a 74 and a tie for ninth.
The Australian did not play again until St. Andrews, and he never mentioned the dizziness he felt on Saturday. The Open was delayed by rain on Friday, so Day had to return to the course to finish the second round on Saturday.
“But since then, I’ve been fine,” he said. “I’ve been making sure that I’m staying on top of it and you can’t control it. It will come back whenever it wants to.”
He said he took cortisone in Scotland and got plenty of rest, along with what he estimated at taking 25 pills.
“I made sure I stayed on top of the medication that I had to take that day, and from there, Sunday rolled around and I was feeling much better,” he said.
He said he would stay on medication for the rest of the year. Day, who lives outside Columbus, Ohio, said he is seeing a specialist at The Ohio State University Hospital and went through a series of tests in the offseason.
“Eye tests and vertigo tests and all that stuff,” he said. “That seemed to come back pretty good, so we’re on (medication) for another year and then we’re off.”