SPRINGFIELD, N.J. -- Jason Day insists he wasn't pulling a fast one. It wasn't the ol' rope-a-dope. He wasn't trying out the "under-promise and over-deliver" strategy. And he certainly wasn't attempting to blow up your fantasy team.
No, he maintains that he was being completely honest when he spoke Wednesday morning about the expectations he had for himself at this week's PGA Championship.
"With the limited practice and limited prep that I've had," he said, "I'm not coming into this week expecting a lot."
There's probably a lesson in here somewhere, one we could all learn if we weren't currently so mesmerized by all those red circles littering Day's card after the second round.
On a week that began with him having a cold and his wife going to the emergency room because of an allergic reaction and his two children sick and not playing a practice round until Wednesday and getting through it quickly to stay out of the heat, Day followed an opening-round 68 with a 5-under 65 that has him in a share of third place, just 2 strokes out of the lead going into the weekend.
While the rest of us might not be surprised that the world's No. 1-ranked player and this tournament's defending champion is once again in contention, Day himself didn't exactly see this coming.
"I was a little bit sick at the start of the week and under the weather, so a lot of the expectation came down," he explained after Friday's round. "I think being able to kind of voice where I'm at mentally and physically with my health takes a lot of expectations off my shoulders and lets everyone know that I don't have a lot of expectations coming to the week."
His second round didn't start with anything special. Day opened par-birdie-bogey, then made pars on each of the next three holes.
He then made a mess of the par-4 seventh hole, flying the green from the greenside bunker, which ultimately led to a double-bogey.
"I kind of gave myself a little bit of a kick in the bum," he later admitted. "It was a bit of a mess there."
What happened next is the stuff of video games.
He birdied the eighth hole. And the ninth. And the 10th. After a par on the 11th, he reeled off four more birdies in a row.
All told, it was a nine-hole stretch that he played in 7-under 26. That's right -- nine holes, 26 strokes. Video game stuff.
"If it was on a Sunday, it would be the best," he said of that stretch. "But since it's on a Friday, it's just a good solid round. Getting myself in contention is where we want to be by Sunday and obviously playing and shooting 65 today is that one step closer."
It was even enough to draw some compliments from a guy who knows a thing or two about torrid golf -- one of his playing partners, Phil Mickelson.
"He had a shot on 8 that was really cool to watch," Mickelson said. "I haven't seen anybody with his power be able to hit that shot where we've got 86 yards, a back pin, it's soft and spinning and pitched. To take a club that usually goes about 125, hit it 40 yards less than the normal number and skid it in there and get the ball to not spin, his power and his wedge play coupled with his putting are combinations you don't see very often. He's a very gifted player."
Now that he's on the leaderboard and already in contention and chasing a pair of co-leaders in Jimmy Walker and Robert Streb who have never won a major, you might think those lowly early week expectations have been raised by Day.
Think again.
He's still being cautious, still sounding like a guy who isn't completely confident that he's ready to make a serious run at this thing.
"I've just got to kind of inch my way slowly," he insisted. "Obviously, I don't want to give the guys at the top some shots when I'm making silly errors. So I just want to try to inch my way back into the tournament that way."
Silly errors? Inch his way back?
Day is sounding like a guy who doesn't have many expectations going into the weekend.
Then again, maybe that's the right strategy. After all, it has been working so far.