Jason Day’s mom, Dening, dies at 65 after long battle with cancer
ORLANDO – Former PGA Championship winner Jason Day’s mom, Adenil “Dening” Day, died Wednesday night, he posted on social media. She was 65.
Day, a former champion of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, had withdrawn from the tournament on Wednesday, the third time he has done so in the last four years. He did not cite a reason, leading to speculation that his balky back might be plaguing him again. If only that had been the case.
“Last night, my mum peacefully left us after battling cancer for five years,” Day said on Instagram. “We are heartbroken but incredibly grateful for the gift we had in her living with us for the last almost two years full time. She fought so hard until the very last breath. I am forever indebted to her for the sacrifices she made for me to be successful, and for the person she helped me to become. We will miss her so much.”
Born in the Philippines, Dening studied nursing and met Day’s father, Alvyn, an Australian, via a letter he sent seeking a wife to Dening’s landlady’s sister. That woman had moved to Italy and so Dening penned a response.
“Maybe I was tired of Manila,” she told Karen Crouse of The New York Times. “I maybe had enough of working as well.”
Day was just 12 years old when his father lost his battle to stomach cancer. The 34-year-old native of Queensland, Australia hasn’t forgotten the sacrifices his mother made to send him to the same boarding school that Adam Scott attended, a mere eight hours from the Day home. She took out a second mortgage, borrowed money from relatives, and worked a second job to afford his tuition.
At Kooralbyn International School, Day found salvation in golf when he met Collin Swatton, who became a father figure of sorts and guided Day to World No. 1 as his swing coach and caddie.
In early 2017, Dening was diagnosed with a mass in her left lung that turned out to be Stage 4 non-small-cell lung cancer. Day withdrew from the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play during a teary-eyed news conference to spend time with her when he was told that she had only a few months to live. He brought her to the U.S. for exploratory surgery and her cancer went into remission for a time. Dening was by Day’s side at the 2020 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. She spent the final two years of her life in Columbus, Ohio, where Day and wife Ellie live with their four children, the last of whom was born in June.
It was Dening who taught her son by example that with hard work he could do anything. All of her sacrifices were rewarded as through good old-fashioned hard work a once-troubled teen who didn’t think he’d amount to a hill of beans grew into a champion.
