Aussie golfer Jason Day reveals how cry for help from Tiger Woods helped him turn his career around

Born-again Aussie golf star Jason Day has described how a chance encounter with the former Tiger Woods swing coach provided the unexpected tonic that revived his ailing career.

After spiraling to 175th in the rankings last September, Day is flying high again at No. 20 in the world after converting form from six top-10 finishes this year into a stunning first PGA Tour win since March 2018.

Day shot a superb nine-under-par 62 in the final round to win the AT&T Byron Nelson Championship for a second time – 13 years after winning his first PGA Tour event at the Texas tournament.

The win was extra emotional for Day, who fell on Mother’s Day a year after losing his own mother to cancer.

In a poignant tribute, Day’s caddy wore a bib with his mother’s birth name ‘Adenil’ and the inspired former world number 1 honored her memory in style with his first tournament win since the 2018 Farmers Insurance Open.

Tiger Woods reached out to Day when he was struggling with chipping — and the Aussie was introduced to the American icon’s swing coach, Chris Como

But the 35-year-old former world No. 1 admits the circle might not have come full circle if Woods hadn’t asked for help during the low point of his own career.

“When Tiger was going through the chipping yips, Tiger invited me to go over the chipping technique and all that stuff,” Day revealed in the afterglow of his spectacular Sunday in Dallas.

Chris Como [Tiger’s swing coach] had seen a bunch of 3d biotests of my chipping and they wanted to pick my brain I guess about what I was thinking and all that stuff related to the chipping.

“And I remember coming out of that meeting with Tiger and Chris thinking, ‘There’s something about Chris’.

“He’s very quiet, listens very carefully, but you could tell he knew a lot about the game and knew on a deeper level what the club should be doing.”

Then, after talking to some of his colleagues and learning that Como didn’t have many players on its books at the time, Day probed the swing guru.

Como came on board in 2021 and has since helped Day rebuild his swing to alleviate the back problems that led Australia’s one-time grand winner to retire from golf altogether.

“There was just something about him that drew me to him, so when I talked to him about the golf swing, I just knew he was really excited,” Day said.

Chris Como (pictured left) came on board in 2021 and has since helped Day rebuild his swing to alleviate back pain that had him thinking about retiring

Day was very emotional as he won the Byron Nelson Championship last weekend to break a PGA winning drought that lasted five years

Before sending the SOS call to Como, Day was seriously considering retirement.

“There were definitely times when I thought ‘you know what, I’m done playing the game’. Just because of the stress it caused me and what it did to my health,” he said Monday.

“Mentally I was not there and I had no confidence in myself.

“I really felt like I didn’t have the game and maybe I was one of those guys who had a really good career and injuries hurt me and fighting injuries and trying to get back to the top maybe it was I’m one of those guys who would date that way.

“But I didn’t want to look back at my career and know that I didn’t give it a good chance to come back.”

Day said that if it weren’t for his wife Ellie, his caddy and lifelong friend Luke Reardon, his coach and the rest of his team, he probably would have walked out of the sport.

“They didn’t take a lot of heat, but a lot of negative comments just from me about myself,” he said.

“It was really important to have them as a kind of support group that I really needed to get me through this because if you don’t have the right people it’s very, very hard to have any success – especially in golf.

“They taught me not to give up on yourself.”