Jason Day’s career has been on a downward trajectory over the past few years, with the former Would Number 1 now in danger of missing out on multiple majors in 2022.

The Australian is ranked 79th in the world and is only exempt for the 2022 PGA Championship, and ahead of the CJ Cup this week, Day spoke frankly about his struggles.

“I’m a different player than what I was five years ago. I’m a different person. I have different priorities. I can’t work as hard as I used to just because of my body, and I’m OK with that.

I’m not trying to do the exact same thing that got me to No.1 in the world. I know that if I did that, I wouldn’t get there because my body wouldn’t handle it. So I’ve got to somehow be able to kind of learn as I go along and try and adapt as best I can.”

Day’s back has been a source of frustration for the Australian, who has had to pull out of multiple events in the past with injuries. Ahead of the CJ Cup, the Aussie revealed that he’d be playing just one more event (after CJ Cup) before January, meaning a long break from competitive golf was on the cards.

“I’m playing this week and I’m scheduled to play the Shootout, and then the next tournament I’ll play is Farmers Open. So I guess that’s three events in five, six months, something like that.

(I’ll be]) focusing a lot on my mind, focusing a lot on my body. Both are very much important, like both body and mind. Trying to work on myself personally, which is something that we don’t do enough of as professional athletes.

So I feel like things are progressing in what they need to do, but, you know, the level — the play that I’m expecting this week, I’m here just to see how things have progressed swing-wise. What that will, you know, produce result-wise will be interesting to see how it goes this week.”

Day also opened up on the stress that returning to his best form has caused him and how he plans to get back competing at a high level while enjoying himself more.

“I guess obviously we all battle demons, you know what I mean, and especially as golfers. It’s such an individual sport even though we do have, as individuals, we do have teams around us, but you’re out there battling yourself.

Try and discover that golf is not the thing that defines me, you know what I mean? If I play bad golf, as long as I give it everything that I can, then it is what it is, the results are the results. Not to always have golf on my mind is what I’m saying. I just don’t need to have that stress and that anxiety of actually going and performing because everyone else thinks I should be performing the way that they should.

So there’s a lot of expectations not only on the golf course on myself, but also have other people around you and whatnot. I feel like these last two years I’ve grown a lot as kind of an individual because I have stopped battling these things and you learn to go, okay, well, I’m either going to quit the game because I don’t want to feel like this and it’s not motivating and I’m struggling with it, or how do I handle it and tackle it head on and be able do it in a healthy way where for the next 10, 15 years, if I want to, I actually enjoy myself on the golf course while competing at a high level.

I think the biggest thing is do I want to climb that mountain again. I’ve got to take it easy and I’ve got to be smart about it because if I’m not smart about it, then it could be short-lived.”