Jason Day drops out of world top-100

Five years ago Jason Day was riding high. The Queenslander had finished the 2016 season as the World No.1 following three victories and seven other top-10’s and seemed unstoppable

Fast-forward to 2021 and, following several seasons plagued by injury and distractions off-course including his mother being diagnosed with lung cancer, Day has this week fallen outside of the world’s top-100 to 105th.

Jason Day was on top of the world after winning the 2015 PGA Championship (Credit: www.golffile.ie)

The now 34-year-old first reached the top-100 following his breakthrough victory at the 2010 HP Byron Nelson Championship. Entering the week in 172nd place, the win moved him into 79th position before ending the year in 39th following a string of solid results towards the end of the season.

However, it would take another five years before the Australian would reach the summit. An incredible five wins in 2015, including his lone major title, saw him move past Rory McIlroy into the No.1 position thanks to a victory at the BMW Championship during the FedExCup Playoffs. The celebrations were short-lived with Jordan Spieth’s win at the Tour Championship the very next week meaning Day’s stay at the top was brief.

The pair would swap No.1 positions over the coming months before another three victories from Day in early 2016 cemented him as the world’s best golfer for a stretch of 47 weeks that lasted until February 2017.

Despite the slow fall from grace, Day believes he can get back to his best and ironically his sparring partner from those days, Jordan Spieth, has already shown this year that it can be done.

Spieth was sitting at 92nd as recently as the middle of this year before a win at the Valero Texas Open in April and a handful of other top results combined to move him back into the world’s top-10 by the end of October.

“I think the last two, three seasons of not playing that well obviously humbles you a lot,” Day told AAP earlier this year. “I know my game is good enough to be No.1. Obviously not right now, but I 100 per cent believe in my heart I can get back there.”

“I’ve missed a lot of cuts over the last two, three years, so you start forgetting the results, you start focusing more on the process. But I feel it will come, I’ve just got to be patient.”

“I see all the work I’m doing and see a lot of good stuff coming.”