On Tuesday during his pre-tourney presser at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, world no. 3 Jason Day talked about handling the pressure that comes along with reaching world no. 1 — which the Australian held for a brief stint after winning the BMW Championship last September. Day’s year has been off to a slow start — mostly because he’s only played in four tournaments (and two of them were limited field events) in 2016, with his best finish being T11 at Pebble Beach.
But compared to Spieth’s crazy worldwide, whirlwind of a schedule, Day’s looks much more balanced and relaxed. I mean, Spieth went to defend his title at the Australian Open last winter and Day, who is actually Australian, didn’t even bother making the trip to play. While Spieth has only made five starts on the PGA Tour this year, he’s also competed on other tours in the Middle East and Asia. Relatively speaking, Spieth has racked up quite a bit more travel mileage over the last few months, and that can be exhausting at any age, but the 22-year-old American doesn’t have two young children like Day does.