Day sidesteps controversy and hopes for a golf pairing with Woods

Jason Day, 23, returns for his first Australian summer of golf as a professional, as the International team's highest-ranked player at the Presidents Cup.


And the world No.7 has requested an Open pairing with Tiger Woods the week before the Presidents Cup.


Day said he was fired up to deliver for International team captain Greg Norman.


"The last conversation I had with Greg, I said to him, 'I want the team to win. We want to win it really bad.'


"Greg said, 'You know, that's good to hear'. I've been hearing it from a lot of the guys on the team. I think a lot of the guys are pumped up to play," Day said from Texas yesterday.


"I really want to play well for the team. I just don't want to let my teammates down. I think that's the main thing."


Day said he now had a legitimate claim to live up to his intention of becoming world No.1.


"At the start of my career I thought I was going to come out and kill it. Unfortunately, it didn't happen that way," Day said.


"I've slowly worked my way back up to where I believe I can be. I know that it's going to take a while. But hopefully I can get that No.1 spot in the next five years."


Day said US team captain Fred Couples had to pick Woods, a sentiment echoed by teammate David Toms.


"(It's) been a little disappointing to see him not play as well. I think golf obviously needs him. It would be fun if he can come out and play well. I think it would be a good warm-up for him for Presidents Cup."


Woods's selection became a hot topic this month when international team captain Greg Norman suggested he would have opted for US PGA champion Keegan Bradley rather than the 14-time major winner.


Day's international teammate Geoff Ogilvy then questioned Couples's decision to promise Woods a spot in the team months before he was selected.


"You know, I think the best way to approach that is to say that when Tiger is playing well and he's healthy, he's the best player in the world and I think everyone in golf knows that," Toms said.


"So if he's working on his game and he feels healthy, I think he's a great addition to the team.


"Any time that there's a captain's pick involved, there's going to be a deserving player that gets left off because you can't pick everybody."


Toms suggested the easy way to avoid such controversies would be to eliminate the captain's picks -- 10 players in each team are selected automatically based on rankings points before the respective captains nominate two players each.


"I guess really the only way to do it would just be to take the 12 and just make it -- the top 12 guys make the team, no captain's picks, and that's the easy way out," he said.


"But. . . I still think that Tiger in a match-play format is very, very difficult to beat."


Day added: "Tiger has dominated the game for a good 10 years.


"It's hard not to pick him. Whether it's Keegan or Tiger, we still have to beat that person."


All about:  Tiger Woods,   Jason Day