Day's birdies turn to bogeys for second round

The second nine of Au­gus­ta National Golf Club has not been kind to Jason Day and has cost him the chance to be much closer to the lead through 36 holes.

The world’s No. 1-ranked player and winner of his past two PGA Tour starts birdied three of seven holes on the first nine on his way to 2-under 34 but made three bogeys and no birdies coming in and shot 73 to finish at 1-over-par 145. He is five shots behind leader Jordan Spieth – whom he replaced atop the world ranking last month.

He is 7-under on the first nine and 8-over on the second nine this week. He has only one birdie on the par-5 13th and 15th holes. He ended the day tied for 15th with seven other golfers.

“I think I worked the front side out and just got to tidy up the back side,” he said. “Right now, it’s really difficult conditions.”

Day said the obvious second-nine holes that are troublesome in windy conditions are the par-4 11th, the par-3 12th and the par-5 15th.

“I’m standing there on 12 and … it’s on my side to down, downwind, and then it switches back into, and then you’ve got to stand up there and hit the shot … and trust the wind is going to do what it’s supposed to do.”

Day bookended his round with bogeys at Nos. 1 and 18, missing 8-foot par attempts both times. He bounced back quickly from the first bogey to two-putt for birdie from 50 feet at No. 2, make a 7-footer for birdie at No. 5 and a 12-footer for birdie at No. 8.

He botched a chance to make up ground at No. 13 when he hit his second shot in the water.

Day enjoys grinding under conditions that some players have likened to a U.S. Open. If those conditions continue, don’t count out Day, who has four top-10 finishes in five starts in that major (two as runner-up), two top-10 finishes in the Mas­ters, one in the Open Cham­pion­ship and three in the PGA.