Even though he is No. 1, Jason Day knows Masters field is stacked

The guy most likely to make the 80th Masters a runaway doesn’t think it will be a runaway.

“It's a good feeling to be here No. 1,” the world’s hottest player said Tuesday. “I've been playing fantastic, but to be honest, I don't think I'm the favorite this week. As you know, there's a lot of people out there that can play well this week and win. You know, Jordan (Spieth) and Rory (McIlroy) and Henrik (Stenson), how he's playing lately, and even Phil (Mickelson) is a favorite here. There's so many players that can win around here, and there's not just one heavy favorite this week.”

So Jason Day might be the only person who doesn’t think Jason Day is a heavy favorite this week. The 28-year-old Australian won the game’s most recent major (the 2015 PGA), has won six times in his last 13 starts, has won twice in the last three weeks and is the betting favorite along with Spieth and McIlroy at 7-to-1.

“Isn’t Jason the favorite?” defending champion Spieth quipped during his Tuesday press conference.

He certainly should be.

Day, who won the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the World Golf Championships-Dell Match Play in his last two starts, took over golf’s top spot after his win at Match Play two weeks ago.

“I feel comfortable with where I'm at, walking around the grounds No. 1 in the world; it's a good feeling,” he said, “but I know that I can't take it for granted, because obviously in this game, things can change pretty quickly.”

He’s intent now on extending his lead in the world rankings in order to hold onto the top spot for a while.

“Winning takes care of everything, and if you win, usually win the big ones, and you can extend the gap between being No. 1 and No. 2 in the world,” he said. “That's kind of the focus that I'm really trying to focus on right now, is trying to extend the gap.”

A win here would help. After finishing second in his first Masters in 2011, Day’s final position in the event has slipped each successive year. He withdrew in 2012, finished third in 2013, finished tied for 20th in 2014 and tied for 28th last year.

“This has been a tournament in the past that I've tried too hard and shot myself out of the tournament, so I've just got to kind of relax; understand that I have a certain process that I go through each tournament to get ready to compete and I need to stick to that,” he said.

He arrived in Augusta on Friday and has played nine holes each day since. Tuesday, he played the front nine with countryman Adam Scott before calling it a day.

He will play the Par 3 contest on Wednesday, and then tee off at 1:06 p.m. Thursday along with Matt Kuchar and Ernie Els.

A year after Jordan Spieth’s record-setting, 18-under victory at Augusta National, Day has seen signs during his practice rounds that the tournament’s organizers don’t want to see a similar winning score this week.

“I can already tell that the greens are very quick,” he said. “The greens, if they keep going with how they are, the greens are going to be pretty quick, and the wind is going to be pretty steady out there. Thursday, Friday is going to be a very difficult first two rounds. It's going to be a little bit cooler this year, too. I'd probably would look anywhere between 10 and 12 to win the tournament right now.”

Day has struggled with a bulging disc in his back throughout his professional career, but said Tuesday that the back is 100 percent healthy at the moment. He did reveal earlier in the week that he played the Match Play Championships with flu-like symptoms and lost 11 pounds (from 190 to 179) during the course of the event.

Day’s fellow group of young guns have taken notice of the season he’s having, and are hoping to put a stop to it.

“What Jason Day did during the summer and this year, as well yeah, I don't want to be left behind,” McIlroy said. “I want to be a part of that conversation.”

Day would be delighted to be locked in a Sunday duel with McIlroy or Spieth or Mickelson – or all of the above.

“I want the best playing against the best, and fighting out for it,” he said. “If I ended up not wearing the green jacket at the end of Sunday, but I have a fantastic competitive match against the best players in the world, that's what I'm there for. I enjoy and thrive off that competitiveness. I would enjoy a Spieth-McIlroy-(Rickie) Fowler-Scott-Watson-Mickelson Sunday. That would be a lot of fun.”

This story was originally published April 5, 2016 at 10:23 PM with the headline "Even though he is No. 1, Jason Day knows Masters field is stacked."