Jason Day phoned Tiger Woods looking to get back ‘killer instinct’

Jason Day got on the phone to try to find some of the mojo he had in 2015 but, so far, hasn’t come back in 2016.

Day gave a call to Tiger Woods, who has become somewhat of a mentor for the reigning PGA champion, for a 50-minute conversation to get some words of wisdom from the 14-time major champion.

“I talked a little bit to Tiger last week on the phone, and just speaking to him … with regards to all this stuff, practice and balancing and dominating for so many years,” Day said Wednesday ahead of the WGC-Cadillac Championship.

“If you’re going to pick a guy’s brain, he’s the guy. I can’t count how many times he said effort and mindset and everything, had to do a lot with the mind.”

The Aussie is trying to find a new level of mental toughness, somewhat akin to the discipline Woods had to win without his best and to not lose sight of the goal — winning — whether the outcome was close or hardly in doubt.

“Once I improve the mental game for myself, this is the last piece of the puzzle for me, I believe, and I think I’ll be able to go out there and just kind of kill it,” Day said. “Talking to him, every time that I talk to him, it’s just every time it comes up, it’s mindset, mental, mental toughness, effort. It didn’t matter how bad it was; if it was a course that he did not like, he was just going to flat out-execute you. It did not matter.

“That’s that killer instinct that I need to get back like I had at the second half of last year, get back and take it into this year and go through with it.”

Day hasn’t been the same golfer to start 2016 as he was to end last year. Day has an incredible summer, winning the PGA Championship and two legs of the FedEx Cup playoffs as part of a five-win season. He reached No. 1 in the world but ultimately came up short of winning the season-long points race. He took a break from competition in the fall as his wife Ellie gave birth to the couple’s second child in November.

So far, Day has only made three PGA Tour starts this year. He finished T-10 at the year-starting Hyundai Tournament of Champions, missed the cut in a title defense at the Farmers Insurance Open and finished T-11 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Ryan Ballengee is a Yahoo Sports contributor. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.

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