It has possibly been largely forgotten just how much Jason Day achieved during the 2015 PGA Tour season – a year in which he climbed to the summit of the world golf rankings.
The last few years have been mixed for Jason Day. Between 2019 and 2024, the 36-year-old managed to secure just one victory on the PGA Tour. It was notable that he was one of the players Mike Weir sat out for both sessions on Saturday at the Presidents Cup last month.
Injury clearly played a key role in preventing Day from kicking on once he reached the top of the golfing mountain in 2015. He clinched his first major at Whistling Straits in the PGA Championship, and that proved to be one of five victories that he would enjoy that year.
But it would appear that Day was not entirely satisfied once he reached the world number one spot nine years ago. And his decision to twist rather than perhaps continue what he was already doing once he got there caused him plenty of issues down the line.
Jason Day reveals the mistake he made once he reached world number one
Speaking on The Smylie Show about the injury issues he has dealt with throughout the last decade, Day suggested that his desire to improve further really cost him, particularly as he was not necessarily working on the right things away from the course.
“I really started getting injured in ’15 and ’16, I was fighting through some pain there. When I was number one in the world, my mindset was I’ll fight through it, it doesn’t matter what it is, I’ll just keep pushing because will I get another opportunity at this? Maybe, maybe not, I’m just going to keep pushing through it, because that was the way my mind worked,” he said.
“That caught up to me pretty quick, I was doing some wrong training at the time, I was lifting some significant weight in the gym, doing a lot of powerlifting stuff, went from super-setting stuff to straight powerlifting stuff. I was deadlifting 410 and squatting 365, it was sets of those, it wasn’t like one and done, we’re doing sets of those, which is kind of crazy to think about.”
Why the best times may still lie ahead for the Australian
It was such a shame that Day experienced the decline. He made the cut at just two of the eight majors in 2021 and 2022, not playing at all in four of them. But there have more positive signs in the last couple of years.
Day won the AT&T Byron Nelson in 2023 and returned to the Presidents Cup fold this year after seven years away. While he did not have his best stuff in Royal Montreal, he did remind everyone of his previous magic, particularly with a couple of chip shots during the week.
Day turns 37 next month, so he still has more than enough time to enjoy another hugely successful period in his career. 38-year-old Keegan Bradley was the man to clinch the Presidents Cup for USA in Canada. Meanwhile, 44-year-old Adam Scott was absolutely superb at times this season – losing only to Bradley at the BMW Championship at Castle Pines during the FedEx Cup play-offs.
Day appears to be in a really good place in his life right now, so hopefully there is another charge up the world rankings still ahead of the Australian.
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