Three straight PGA Tour top-10 finishes have rocketed Day back into the world's top 50 and in line for a Masters invitation, but the 35-year-old hopes this is merely the start of his resurgence.
"The goal is to try and get back to No.1," Day said on a zoom call from the US on Wednesday.
"If it happens sooner, great. If it doesn't, I'm just going to keep working hard and hopefully it happens somewhere down the road."
That Day is even talking about returning to the summit is a huge turnaround after hitting rock bottom and slumping to 175th in the rankings last September following years battling a debilitating back injury, overhauling his swing to compensate and losing his mother to cancer.
"It's a very humbling experience going from No.1 in the world to No.150...because for a moment there I didn't know if I was going to play golf again just based off my injuries and like what that was doing to my body and how I was not competitive for a good two, three years," he said.
"I struggle pretty hard mentally I would say. It was more like personal issues with my mum passing and I didn't realise how much watching someone go through what she went through.
"Even though I watched it when I was younger but like at that time I was too young to really kind of understand the whole situation with what was going on with my dad (who also died of cancer).
"Going through that and the stress of watching my mum go through, passing of lung cancer, that was difficult because that was hard for me to mentally stay locked (in) out on the PGA Tour.
"But also that stress added to parts of the injuries that were going on with my health as well. Stress is a silent killer and it's something that you can't really take lightly.
"You've got to do something about it. Obviously I feel like for the first time in probably four years or so that I can actually focus on golf again.
"The only thing I'm focused on right now is playing good golf."
The 2015 PGA Championship winner is playing so well that he is one of only two players to have posted top-10 results in the last three PGA Tour events, along with Jon Rahm, who has five worldwide wins from his past nine starts.
A return to the Masters, where Day boasts a runner-up finish plus a third, three top-5s and four top-10s, is a huge motivator.
"I definitely want to get back to Augusta," he said.
"I get to play the PGA but missing the other majors, it's really hard for me to sit back and kind of watch it."
Currently world No.46, Day needs to be in the top 50 on April 2 to make the Masters field.
He only plans to tee up at The Players Championship, Arnold Palmer Invitational and the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play in the coming weeks.
But if he drops out of the top 50, Day said he'll add the Valspar Championship from March 16-19 to his schedule to try to seal a Masters spot.
"The only major that growing up that I wanted to win was Augusta National," he said.
"So every single time I get the chance to compete in it I'm doing everything I possibly can to prepare and try and win that event."
8°C