"I'm the most boring person off the golf course"- Jason Day recalls his Paris Olympics experience where he 'didn't do anything at all'
Jason Day concluded his trip to the Olympics without a gold medal, and all of the action he took in was seemingly only on the golf course. He ended up finishing ninth representing Australia and shooting 12 under par.
Those four days of golf were all the athletics Day was involved in as he claimed he never even made it out to watch other events. Day said (via SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio):
"I'm the most boring person off the golf course, I swear. I don't do anything at all. I literally go back and do all my therapy stuff. By the time I'm done, I'm like... we tried to go see the Palace Versailles like four times, and every time we walked up, they said it was closed... I get to go home."
He laughed about how he's a "dad" and gets tired easily, so he wasn't upset about having to go home and do nothing. Several of the athletes popped up at different events to watch and support their fellow countrymen, but Day mostly spent his time relaxing.
As for his actual on-course experience, he had nothing but positive things to say. The golfer noted:
"It was great. Monday through Wednesday, we didn't have any vans. When I was on the putting green, I started hearing chanting on the first tee. You have to go up over these stairs to get to the first tee... It's a sea of people... and they're just yelling. It was a unique experience."
Day is 36, so there's no telling whether or not he'll make it to the next Olympics in LA in 2028. There aren't a ton of top-ranked Australian golfers, though, and he might qualify anyway as one of the country's top players.
Jason Day regrets skipping 2016 Olympics
Jason Day did not compete in the 2016 Olympics in Rio, citing a concern over the Zika virus and other health concerns. Now, in 2024, he admitted that that decision was one he wishes he could take back.
He said via ESPN before the Paris Olympics:
"I think selfishly I made a decision on my schedule and how I was feeling at the time. I was emotionally and physically burned out."
He continued, saying that despite there being a lot on his plate, he should have gone anyway:
"I was No. 1 in the world. You learn from previous mistakes ... but looking back on it, I should have gone. A lot of people would kill for a chance to represent their country."
Jason Day hasn't made it back to the peak of the OWGR since that time, so he skipped out on playing the Olympics when he was perhaps truly in his athletic prime. Nevertheless, he played this time and did fairly well in the stroke play.