The Open: Jason Day says patience is key in recovering form at Royal Birkdale

Jason Day has acknowledged he is struggling to rediscover the form that saw him become world No 1 ahead of The Open at Royal Birkdale.

The Australian has suffered a disappointing season so far but believes patience and dedication towards his game will provide the basis for a resurgence in his performances.

Day has missed the cut at his last two tournaments including the US Open at Erin Hills and last month’s Travelers Championship.

When asked what’s missing from his game, Day replied: "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.

"I’ve just got to keep working at it. 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. It’s kind of like the flavour of the week – whoever wins that week, everyone wants to talk about, but you go to the tournament next week and no one wants to talk about who won last week."

Day has battled against complaints of slow play when playing at tournaments, but the PGA Championship winner from 2015 is not perturbed by the prospect of being put on the clock this week.

He believes he has been unfairly treated citing his good performances at tournaments during his run of consistent form between 2015 and 2016 as being a determining factor.

"I’ve been put on the clock already this year, so it doesn’t really worry me too much," Day said. "I guess I’ve got to try -once again, you’ve got to respect the other players, as well, out there.

"Last year I was put on the clock once, and I think this year maybe once or twice. The only reason why I think a lot of people think I’m slow is that when I was playing well, I was in a lot of groups on Sundays, in the last few groups and usually everyone takes their time on the last few groups on Sunday."

Day added: "But I still definitely will take my time. I need to make sure that I’m hitting the correct shots. I think at the end of my career no one is going to go, he was a great golfer, but he was slow.

"To be honest, I don’t really care what people say. I need to do what I need to do to win a golf tournament. And within reason of respecting other players and the Rules of Golf."

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(c) Sky News 2017: The Open: Jason Day says patience is key in recovering form at Royal Birkdale