Jason Day Reveals He Considered Retirement - "I Think I'm Nearly Done Here"
The former World No.1 has had a tough time with injuries over the past few years
The former World No.1 has had a tough time with injuries over the past few years
Jason Day Reveals He Considered Retirement - "I Think I'm Nearly Done Here"
Jason Day finished 4th at Pebble Beach this weekend for what was his best finish on the PGA Tour since June.
The Aussie has had a torrid time with injuries since reaching the World No.1 spot in 2015, particularly with his back.
His back was so bad last year that he even considered retiring at the age of 32, he revealed at the weekend.
In December he had to withdraw from the Presidents Cup and Australian Open due to a back problem but he appears to be on the mend, for now anyway, thanks in part to a new regime involving blowing into balloons to "get my rib cage back into position."
The 12-time PGA Tour winner was speaking openly and honestly at Pebble Beach after some signs of his great golf returning.
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"I feel like it's been a long time since I've actually been out there and felt the way that I felt out there today and played well like that," Day said over the weekend at Pebble Beach.
"You feel like your world is kind of crumbling around yourself, especially as an athlete who plays injured.
"And it's not a good feeling because there's some dark moments in there that you got to kind of fight through.
"All last year I would sit there and think, 'Okay, I don't know how much I can kind of push myself through this.'
"Am I going to -- like because I thought maybe I'll re-evaluate things at 40. And I'm like, 'Okay, if I can kind of push it to 35 then that would be good.'
"But those are the things that go along in your head -- as you're an injured player, you think, 'maybe my time is just coming around the corner and I might have to rack the clubs.'
"And that's a really terrible way of seeing it because I am only 32."
Day then confirmed that he did indeed considering an early retirement, stating that at the time he thought he was "nearly done".
"I was, for a moment there, [thinking about giving up the game] when I was playing, I was playing bad golf and I was also injured, like there's a stretch from kind of like The Players up until now where I was really playing well.
"I just, I honestly felt like I probably -- and I've talked to my wife about this a lot. I'm like, 'I think I'm nearly done here', just because of how much pain I was in.
"And then on top of it how stressful it is to play competitive golf week-in and week-out and try and live up to the expectations not only with yourself, but with what everyone else thinks that you should be doing."
Day is currently ranked 38th in the world after a 2019 calendar year featuring just five top-10s and no top-3 finishes.
The Aussie, who won eight times between 2015 and 2016, won his only Major to date at the 2015 USPGA Championship.
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Elliott Heath is our News Editor and has been with Golf Monthly since early 2016 after graduating with a degree in Sports Journalism. He manages the Golf Monthly news team as well as our large Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages. He covered the 2022 Masters from Augusta National as well as five Open Championships on-site including the 150th at St Andrews. His first Open was in 2017 at Royal Birkdale, when he walked inside the ropes with Jordan Spieth during the Texan's memorable Claret Jug triumph. He has played 35 of our Top 100 golf courses, with his favourites being both Sunningdales, Woodhall Spa, Western Gailes, Old Head and Turnberry. He has been obsessed with the sport since the age of 8 and currently plays off of a six handicap. His golfing highlights are making albatross on the 9th hole on the Hotchkin Course at Woodhall Spa, shooting an under-par round, playing in the Aramco Team Series on the Ladies European Tour and making his one and only hole-in-one at the age of 15 - a long time ago now!
Elliott is currently playing:
Driver: Titleist TSR4
3 wood: Titleist TSi2
Hybrids: Titleist 816 H1
Irons: Mizuno MP5 5-PW
Wedges: Cleveland RTX ZipCore 50, 54, 58
Putter: Odyssey White Hot OG #5
Ball: Srixon Z Star XV
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