Day 'felt weird' being in lead at Players Championship

Jason Day

Defending champion and former world number one Jason Day admitted he felt weird seeing his name atop the Players Championship leaderboard.

While it did not last, Day led the PGA Tour tournament on Thursday before William McGirt and MacKenzie Hughes hit the front.

Few knew what to expect from Day this week. On one hand, he was returning to TPC Sawgrass as the titleholders, but he has also been far removed from that sort of form over the last year.

Day, who has been dealing with injuries and personal issues relating to his mother's cancer treatment, jumped out to a fast start. He was five under though 11 holes, and even he was surprised by the fast start in the opening round.

"It kind of felt weird because I haven't really been in the position recently, actually going out there and seeing your name at the top of the leaderboard and stuff like that," Day, who has just one top-10 finish this season, said, via golfchannel.com.

"But with that being said, you always got to start somewhere and try and build on it and it seems like it was a good start for me."

Despite his early birdie barrage, Day did crash back to earth a bit with three bogeys on his last four holes to shoot a two-under 70.

Day was still just three shots back after he signed his first-round card.

"I'm excited about where the state of the game is," Day said. "Obviously there's some positive stuff. It's easy to get yourself out of position here, but for the most part I actually played some solid golf."