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Augusta, Ga. – In golf, the future isn't merely filled with uncertainty, it's dotted with hazards real and imagined. Trees, bunkers, bad backs, swing flaws, relationship problems, caddie relations, gusting winds, self-inflicted pressure and hundreds of fellow competitors who would like to beat you in a skins game on Tuesday and for a million bucks on Sunday.
Golf is hard when you're playing for fun on an empty course. Add galleries and TV cameras pressure and it can turn the cranium into a funhouse.
Take Jason Day. The last time he played in a major, he beat Jordan Spieth, who was trying to finish one of the greatest golf seasons ever with a third major victory.
Day overpowered him at the 2015 PGA Championship at Whistling Straits and has surged to No. 1 in the world. He is the obvious favorite to win the 2016 Masters. He's powerful, has putted extremely well under pressure of late and has proved he can win a major.
But golf is the rare sport in which being the favorite means you're probably not going to win.
No player ranked No. 1 in the world has won the Masters since 2002, according to the Golf Channel. Tiger Woods' dominance fooled us into thinking that the best golfer in the world should win frequently, but at even his best Woods won about a quarter of the majors in which he entered.
Day might be the best golfer in the world. He also has dealt with illness and a back injury and is playing a course that sets up perfectly for Bubba Watson, and is facing a player in Rickie Fowler who might be ready to win a major, and is dueling a field filled with talented players who might be peaking while Day is nursing his ailments.
"Golf is a very, very frustrating game," Day said Tuesday. "It really is. I can sympathize with everyone in this room that's played golf. It's a very difficult game at times and especially as a professional.
"As a junior and amateur, we're playing for toasters. You're really playing for nothing other than pride and toasters. Once you turn professional, everything is based on results. You get nitpicked in the media. Then you have to perform, because if you don't perform, you're off the tour.
"Then you start getting frustrated out there and then you don't practice because you're frustrated with how you're playing and it's a downward spiral from there."
These aren't the laments of a broken golfer. These are the observations of the No. 1 golfer in the world.
Day qualified for his first Masters in 2011. He said he almost quit before the tournament began. "I was sitting across the road in a bus," he said. "Had my agent, my wife and a sports psychologist and we're just sitting there, and I'm like, I just do not like the game right now.
"So we come to the conclusion of just going and saying, 'This might be my last Masters ever playing, I might as well enjoy it.' So I went out there and finished second. And then I loved the game again."
Day always has been talented, and his long journey to his first major was remindful of how hard it is to win. Woods' career has collapsed under the weight of personal crises and injuries, but it doesn't take tabloid headlines or swing changes to derail a golfer. Day has a bulging disk and lost 11 pounds recently because of the flu. A short slump might hand the top ranking to Spieth or Rory McIlroy. He could play well and still fail to win majors. Anything that happens in his life could alter his outlook and career.
"It's emotional highs and lows in the game of golf, and at times when you're going through very, very rough times and you're hating the game," he said. "But when you're thinking about getting rid of caddies and coaches and agents and sometimes wives — that wasn't me, trust me.
"I'm glad I got through it and I'm sitting here today No. 1 in the world."
Jim Souhan's podcast can be heard at MalePatternPodcasts.com. On Twitter: @SouhanStrib. jsouhan@startribune.com
