Time running out for Jason Day, Rory McIlroy to get wins

OLD WESTBURY, N.Y. — One day you’re Tiger Woods. The next day you’re wandering in the woods.

Rory McIlroy and Jason Day know this all too well.

Both at times have ruled the golf world, each an intimidating, powerful force who have left players gasping in their wake. Major champions both, world No. 1 players for long stretches of time.

And now? They’re searching for better days and a return to form after an unsettling year full of injuries, equipment changes and personal challenges.

The two, who have combined for five majors, 36 worldwide wins and 23 PGA Tour victories, are winless this year. Get a mathematician to calculate the odds on that happening? Between them, they’ve made 28 starts on the PGA Tour in 2017 and accumulated nine top-10 finishes. In McIlroy’s heydays of 2014, he had a stretch of eight top-10s in 10 starts, with three wins and three seconds.

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While the two still have time to salvage their season with a victory, both are already looking toward an offseason of dedication to their craft and a freshening of their mind and soul to get ready for 2018.

Both are virtually out of contention heading into the final round of the Northern Trust at Glen Oaks Club, the first of four tournaments in the FedExCup Playoffs. Day is 10 behind and McIlroy 11. McIlroy, still entrenched in the top 10 of the official world rankings at No. 4, has shot 73-68-69. Day, No. 9 in the world, has shot 69-71-68 and has 22 players between him and the leaders.

McIlroy is the defending FedExCup champion, grabbing both the hardware and the $10 million bonus with his last win anywhere in the world coming in the 2016 Tour Championship. It was his second win in last year’s Playoffs and pointed to a huge 2017.

But a persistent rib injury suffered in January has kept him from full flight. He has missed long stretches of time to heal and never got right when he came back and, like Day, never found a rhythm in his start-and-stop season. On top of that, he changed golf balls and golf clubs and has struggled on the greens to the point he’s used nine putters this year. He also got married, so there was a lot going on off the course, too.

“I’ve been trying to piece it all together,” said McIlroy, 28. “I’ve been hanging in there and battling and just trying to keep myself going, really. … I want to play well these next few weeks, but I keep saying, ‘I’ve got one eye on the last three months of this year, and I’m excited to go on that journey and hopefully turn up in 2018 a better golfer, a healthier golfer.’

“I feel like I can sort of refresh my mind, reset and start over again. I feel like I’ve been through a bit of a journey this year.”

Day’s last win came in the 2016 Players Championship, capping a stretch in which he won seven times and notched six other top-10s in 19 events. Since then he has seven top-10s in 25 starts.

A bad back got the best of him, the pressure of being No. 1 took a toll, and his mother’s battle against lung cancer — she had successful surgery in March and is recovering nicely — rattled him.

“I’ve had some really solid, stellar rounds and then had some pretty much awful rounds that you just don’t expect that’s going to come out of your game,” said Day, 29. “It’s humbling being in a position like this, because I know I’ve had it good for a long time, and through some poor play this year, I haven’t been in the position that I would like to be.

“Humbling in that I need to work a lot harder than what I’m doing right now. I’m working hard. Just have to let the work catch up, and hopefully it does shortly. It’s important for me to win this year. If I don’t, I’ll work harder.”

McIlroy will call it a year and turn his focus to 2018 after he plays the Dunhill Links Championship on Oct. 5-8 with his father, Gerry, as his amateur partner. He, too, would love to go into his time off with a victory.

“I haven’t not won a tournament since the 2008 season, which was my real rookie season on the European Tour,” he said. “In 2013 when I struggled, I went down to Australia at the end of the year and I won and it made the end of the year feel pretty good. I’d like to have that feeling again before taking that time off at the end of this year and getting myself right for 2018.”