Jason Day is the first to admit his game is still a long way from the standard he began to set in 2015 when he won his first major and ultimately sparked his rise to World No.1.
On the eve of his seventh appearance of The Open Championship, Day confessed his motivation and discipline to working hard this year had been tested and, as a result, his season thus far has been disappointing.
In many ways his poor is completely understandable considering he started the year after a long rehab from a back injury and has also been dealing with his mother’s fight with lung cancer.
The Queenslander missed the cut in his past two starts – at the US Open and Traveler’s Championship last month – prompting him to take a three-week break prior to returning to competition this week at Royal Birkdale.
So what is different with his game this year, compared with late 2015 and vast stretches of 2016?
“If you take my years 2015 and 2016, I hit it long and straight … straightish. I hit my iron shots a lot closer and I holed everything on the greens,” he said. “And this year it's not as long, it's not as straight. My iron shots aren't as close, and I'm not holing as many putts. So it's a perfect formula for not having a good year.”
"Golf is a marathon and hopefully at the end of my career I'm near the top, somewhere I've never even thought I would be." – Jason Day
He says the answer to recapturing that good form is to continue putting in the hardwork and to remain patient.
“I've just got to keep working at it,” Day said. “The hardest thing is being able to take your own advice sometimes. It's so easy to give advice out. And unfortunately it's very, very difficult to take your own advice sometimes. And my advice is to be as patient as possible and just keep ticking the boxes, and hopefully the work and the workload pays off in the long run.
“In today's world in sports in general it's very easy to kind of shoot yourself in the foot a little bit, whereas you want things to happen really quickly.
“I have to be patient with myself and hopefully just let things happen.”
The 29-year-old also admitted the successes of 2015 and 2016 made him feel burnt out by the end of last year. When his mother’s cancer battle loomed early this year, his love for the hard work on the range, the drive to stay World No.1, was gone.
"When you feel like you're going to lose someone that is very close to you," he said, "there's nothing you want to do more than just be with them. You don't even want to think about playing golf or working. There was a stretch there where I'd just go home and just sit around with her."
Dening Day’s latest prognosis shows some improvement, enough for son Jason devote a little more time to his golf.
"I have to understand that I've got to give myself a little bit of leeway," he said. "Golf is a marathon and hopefully at the end of my career I'm near the top, somewhere I've never even thought I would be.
"I've just got to be patient and let things happen. Because I honestly believe good and big things are coming for me."
Whether those things come for him this week at Birkdale remains to be seen. He appears to have no real expectations in this 146th edition of the Championship but seems happy to wait and see where the cards fall.
"This has always been one of those weeks that has always been a little bit tough for me with my major performances," said Day, whose best Open finish was at St Andrews in 2015 where he finished a shot out of the three-man play-off.
"But you always have to believe in yourself yet it's easier said than done. You can always say that you want to win, but if you don't truly believe in it, it's not really going to happen. I'm just resolved that I'm doing the right things on the course and off it as well.
"I'm not trying to think that I'm coming in here and going to beat everyone else because the truth is that the form hasn't been great. I've just got to start with tomorrow's first shot and hopefully I'm there in contention on Sunday."
Day begins his Open campaign alongside two-time major winner Zach Johnson and reigning Masters Champion Sergio Garcia at 1.04pm local time Thursday (10.04pm AEST).
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