Jason Day: Winning won't be easy for a returning Tiger Woods

Jason Day offered a bit of a reality check for the fervor surrounding Tiger Woods’ announced plans to come back to competitive golf in October at the Safeway Open.

Namely, that, as Woods did in 2015, he’s going to have a hard time navigating his way to the winner’s circle — and that it doesn’t have anything to do with him.

“The game is so tight with how competitive it is and how hard it is to win,” Day said Wednesday at the BMW Championship. “I don’t think winning is going to come as easily as it was for him back in the past.”

While Woods has 79 PGA Tour wins, he hasn’t won on the PGA Tour in three years, since the 2013 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.

Woods has proven to be a mentor of sorts for Day, texting back and forth with him to offer some semblance of advice and counsel for the Aussie as he tries to become a more prolific winner week-to-week, as well in the major championships. The Woods obsession with winning seems to have rubbed off on Day, who has spoken repeatedly and at length throughout the summer about his compulsion to win as much as he can while he is still playing his best golf.

Day, however, believes expectations should be tempered for this three-event comeback.

“I think the hardest thing for him is just to try and get the rust out and really get back to game ready sharpness, which is obviously a difficult thing to do,” he said. “Although we’re expecting big things from him, I don’t expect too much from him, even though he is Tiger Woods.”

Despite their relationship, Day hasn’t really had time to see Woods play golf, and he certainly hasn’t seen the 14-time major winner play competitively since last August’s Wyndham Championship. Like the rest of us, he’s anticipating just what Woods will show off in October.

“I’m looking forward to seeing him play again, seeing what the state of his game is,” Day said. “Obviously, it’s been this time I think he’s done it the right way by waiting and not coming back too soon. There’s been a couple of times where I feel like he may have come back too soon and kind of injured himself a little bit more and that’s what’s kept him out of the game so long. But there’s probably a lot of anticipation to see how the state of his game is and I’m definitely looking forward to watching those tournaments and seeing how his body holds up and how the mental side and obviously the golf side of things hold up as well.”

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

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