Jason Day is not the next Tiger Woods, but he’s the closest we’ve come to one

Look. Look at this. I’m doing it again. You’re doing it again. We’re all doing it again.

Asking for fans of any sport to watch the game for just the ecstasy of experiencing greatness and nothing more is and has always been inefficacious. Sports exist mostly for regular people to “win” arguments with other regular people, here for you to yell at some dude in a bar because Your Team beat His Team, here for you to debate why Kobe is better than MJ, so on and so forth.

We feel the need to order and sequence and rank stuff that needn’t be ordered, and place things that should be left unboxed in the neatest of boxes. Some person with a PhD in understanding these things would probably say this is because humans need a sequenced set of rules to resolve cognitive dissonance within the mind. I don’t know. I think it’s mostly because we’re just kinda dumb and like to yell at each other about stuff, but, sure, whatever.

I am sitting here staring at a screen trying to process what exactly Jason Day is, what he’s become over the last 12 months and his dominance at Sawgrass all weekend. And here I am, likely as you are, doing this same inadvisable thing.

Hey, seven wins in 17 starts, you know, that sounds a lot like Tiger.

I’ve never seen someone carve up a golf course off the tee with a 2-iron like that since Tiger.

Jason Day’s starting to feel and look a lot more like Tiger.

Valid or not, this is what Day has played himself to with a never-really-competitive rout of the Players Championship field over the past four days at Sawgrass -- and it has as much to do with how he did it as much as his overall form over the last year. He’d never played the golf course well, and people that write about golf discussed ad nauseam how the course doesn’t set up perfect for long hitters like himself. Day’s answer was to get with his caddie and coach, Colin Swatton, construct a game plan that left his potent driver in the bag far more often than not, and to perfectly position himself with irons off the tee to contend to win the golf tournament. He executed the plan almost flawlessly, and when the world’s best player in top form approaches a big-time event with such a well-constructed blueprint, beautiful golf and multiple-shot margins will follow.

Is Jason Day the next Tiger Woods? I have no idea, and if you ask me again I’m going to throw my shoe at you. The obvious answer is absolutely not, and most of the reasons why can be blamed on Tiger himself. Good Tiger Woods -- not old, possibly washed Tiger Woods -- played in an era where equipment was still developing, the talent pool was thinner and he truly had no peer. We spent most of the early aughts in a constant search for Tiger’s rival. Sergio Garcia? David Duval? Phil Mickelson? Vijay Singh? That won’t be a problem Jason Day will ever have, mostly due to Tiger’s impact. Golf is deeper now than ever before, there are more players that can win every week on Tour than ever before and there are probably more top-flight players than there have ever been before in this game.

But right at this moment, Day looks like the closest thing we’ve seen to Old Tiger Woods since the man himself hobbled around Torrey Pines in 2008. Day’s current pace, winning seven of his last 17 starts -- a rate of 41 (!!!) percent, is what seems to draw the initial likening to one of his closest friends. The comparison stretches deeper than that. Day’s showing at Sawgrass off the tee, from the fairways and on the greens reflected one of the most complete performances at the venue -- and that’s the scary part.

Right this second, Day is a better driver of the golf ball, a better wedge player and a better putter than just about anyone playing professional golf anywhere in the world. Jordan Spieth can’t, and probably never will, be able to sniff his distance. For now, Rory McIlroy can’t match his putting, something reflected in the Putts Per GIR stat category this past weekend.

Does that mean Day will start to dominate the game like Tiger did in the early 2000s? No, probably not. Both his rivals are too skilled, and fields are too deep. Golf ebbs and flows. McIlroy was the world’s best in 2014, Spieth had early 2015 and it’s been Day’s world ever since. The three will probably continue to cycle at the top in some sort, and the game of golf will be better for it.

But, right now, there’s been no run at the top among those three more evocative of Tiger Woods than Day’s current run. He’s winning tournaments at a Tiger-like rate, with a Tiger-like show and with an all-around game that we haven’t seen since Woods. That doesn’t equate the two, or make Day the New Tiger we’re continually searching for. Day’s dominance could last another 20 days or another 20 years. We shouldn’t do this, or say this or write these things, because it will only feed the interminable search for Eldrick II. Jason Day is just Jason Day and that’s all he needs to be.

Because, right now, Day is as good a player as the golf world has seen this millennium.

Yes. Including him.