Jason Day, of Australia, watches his tee shot on the seventh hole during the third round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational golf tournament in Orlando, Fla., Saturday, March 19, 2016. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
FILIPINO-AUSTRALIAN Jason Day shines brightest among the stars poised to compete in the inaugural golf tournament of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro beginning Aug. 5.
Because of his recent back-to-back PGA Tour victories, Day has propelled himself back to the top of golf’s world and Olympic rankings past young Texan Jason Spieth, the reigning Masters and US Open champion. The ever jolly Irish standout Rory McIlroy remains third in the global standings dominated by the trio for the past few months.
Jason is expected to play for the Australian national team in Brazil, but there’s no doubt he will be cheered by the game’s Filipino followers as if he were competing for the Philippine tri-color.
After all, Day’s mom, Dening Grapilon, who helped mold him as a professional golfer of international caliber, hails from Carigara, Leyte.
The 28-year-old Day acknowledges that he is only human in a game where your fiercest foe is yourself. He accepts that he is not a machine that “can hit it straight down the gut every single time.”
Despite his recent triumphs at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the WGC Dell Match Play, Jason admits that he wasn’t made in a day as one of golf’s best players.
Matter of fact, he almost quit right before the 2011 Masters, his first appearance at Atlanta’s fabled Augusta National Golf Club.
“I really wanted to quit the game,” Day told David Feherty of NBC Sports this week. “I wasn’t having a good time on the golf course.”
Day admitted he did not feel like playing at the Masters five years ago. “I was going to take the time off,” he disclosed to Feherty.
But then Jason took the advice of his team, including his mom’s, and went on to have a “fantastic” time at the Masters that year. He ended up second to Charl Schwartzel, who got to don the coveted green jacket.
Jason, last year’s US PGA champion, will face the top 60 golfers in the Olympic rankings in Rio. The cast will be known after qualifying tournaments ongoing until July.
As I write this, reigning Philippine Open titlist Miguel Luis Tabuena has moved up from 48th last December to 37th in the latest standings. Another PH aspirant, Angelo Que is clinging to the 50th spot.
On the distaff side, Ladies Professional Golf Association veteran Jennifer Rosales has to do more, says National Golf Association president Carlos Coscolluela Jr.
Jennifer, ranked 58th in December, has disappeared from the top 60 in the Olympic rankings.
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(Members of Class 1966, including myself will mark their 50th year of graduation from St. Pius X Institute on April 9. That’s when the revered Catholic high school in Cuyapo, Nueva Ecija, celebrates its 11th global alumni homecoming. The reunion, now a yearly event in my hometown where culture is cultivated and hell is raised at the same time, is the granddaddy of all secondary school remembrances for alums scattered in the four winds. Highlights include an early morning mass at the San Roque Parish church, a parade around town and an evening dance where memories will be rekindled and new ones will get pressed between the pages of the mind.)