KAPALUA, Hawaii – The goals for Jason Day this year are, as you may assume, quite obvious. He’d like to win at least one major and improve on his three-win performance in 2016. Although his record last year was solid, enough to keep him No. 1 at the end, it was not nearly as good as his five-win, one-major tally in 2015.
Day’s not-so-obvious goal this year is to remain No. 1 for 52 consecutive weeks.
“Obviously it’s great to see that you finished No. 1 at the end of the year,” Day said Tuesday at the SBS Tournament of Champions. “But I’d like to go a full year, not just go half a year and get to it and finish at No. 1.
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Day started last year ranked No. 2, dropped to third twice and finally ascended to the top spot after winning back-to-back weeks at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and WGC-Dell Match Play. He’s been there since.
But it’s not enough.
“When you reach a goal, you have got to reevaluate things and try and shoot for something a lot tougher,” he said.
Day has been ranked No. 1 for a total of 44 weeks (40 consecutive), only “slightly” behind fellow Australian Greg Norman’s 331 weeks.
“Right now, it’s a little bit out of the way,” Day smirked. “683 weeks, is a long time.”
Tiger Woods was ranked No. 1 for 683 weeks.