Jason Day’s rise from a talented teenager in rural Australia to a major champion sounds like a dream story. And somewhere in that story lies the legendary Tiger Woods. It wasn’t any direct intervention by Woods, but a book about him that inspired the Australian golfer to up his game.

“So I was sitting there thinking, I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m 14 and Tiger Woods is shooting 67s and 66s, and I’m shooting 72s.’ I’m like, ‘I’m good. I’m a scratch golfer. I’m good, but I’m not that good.’ And for some reason, I decided to get up at four or five o’clock in the morning. Like, it was literally four o’clock because I know we don’t have daylight savings in Queensland, so it gets really light there. So, I was up at 4:00 and I was practicing before school,” Jason Day revealed in a conversation with Ryan McPartlin.

When his father, Alvin, died of stomach cancer, Day processed the death by consuming alcohol and getting into fights as a young teenager. To get him back on track, his mother took a huge risk and sent him to boarding school – Kooralbyn International School. When this school was shut down, he was moved to another golf academy, Hills International.

This is where he met his then roommate and now caddie, Luke Reardon. Reardon had a book about Tiger Woods, which listed the games he had won and the shots he took to win them. This got Jason Day thinking, and he started to wake up early and practice on the range. But years later, the major champion still doesn’t understand why the book affected him so much.

“I don’t know why it happened. I just decided to get up, and I’m like, ‘I’m just going to work on short game.’ And I went out there and started working on my short game,” he recounted. “Started having more scheduled practice. And then after a while, I started shooting ridiculous scores. Like started shooting really good scores.”

“And my handicap started going into the pluses. And then soon thereafter, when I was 16, I finally went through a year of just dominating golf,” Day revealed.

Regardless of the reason, the practice helped Jason Day unlock a new level in his game. Shortly after adopting his intense early-morning practice routine inspired by Woods’ scores, Day swept multiple major junior and amateur titles that year, showcasing his rapid improvement from Hill International College.

He captured the Australian Boys’ Amateur with a seven-shot margin. Soon after the Australian Boys’ Amateur win, he shocked a field of adults at the Queensland Amateur. Jason Day became the youngest champion in its long history.

The 13x PGA Tour winner’s momentum carried overseas to Torrey Pines, where he topped the Boys 15–17 field at the Callaway World Junior Championship with a 281 total. He joined a list of past winners that includes Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson.

He rounded out the year with victories at the New Zealand Under-19 Championship and the ADINA Watches Junior Tournament. Day’s game was never the same as it used to be after the early morning practices. It was more refined.

But it wasn’t just Jason Day who learned something from Tiger Woods and his book. The story goes the other way around, too.

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Tiger Woods sought Jason Day’s chipping expertise

Tiger Woods sought Jason Day’s expertise on chipping during his well-documented “chipping yips” struggles around 2015. This was when the 82x PGA Tour winner was dealing with back pain and inconsistent short game performance.

Woods contacted Day via text, inviting him to a session to discuss chipping technique. At the time, the 15x major champion was working with coach Chris Como, who had analyzed the Australian’s 3D bio-mechanics data. Day shared his straightforward approach, keeping straight arms and rocking through impact, contrasting Woods’ intricate body awareness. He later noted he gained more insights from Woods’ swing feel than Woods did from him.

This 2015 exchange, around Day’s PGA Championship win and World No. 1 rise, strengthened their bond amid Woods’ equipment tweaks and recovery efforts. The 2023 AT&T Byron Nelson winner said Woods took his driver advice of trimming the tees lower. They later practiced short game together, including 2020 sessions with Rory McIlroy.

Jason Day’s journey shows how a simple spark at the right time can steer a young athlete toward extraordinary growth. His later exchange with Tiger Woods brought the story full circle, highlighting two champions learning from each other at different stages of their careers.