Torrey specialist Jason Day returns with new coach and mixed sticks

SAN DIEGO – Two-time Farmers Insurance champion Jason Day will make his 2021 debut at Torrey Pines with a Frankenstein bag set up and a new swing as he looks to return to the top of the PGA TOUR.

Day, who won the Farmers Insurance Open in 2015 and 2018, will start the year as an equipment free agent after being with TaylorMade since 2006. He also started working with instructor Chris Como on swing changes to limit the back pain that he has battled over the last decade. Day worked with Colin Swatton for two decades before the pair parted ways last season.

The 12-time TOUR winner is trying to get his swing path more inside but has to do so at a slow pace as it is a move that in the past has caused problems.

“I feel like things are progressing nicely with my swing ... but I just really have to be very patient with the technical aspect of it,” the 12-time TOUR winner said. “We're trying to get better hip movement, we're going to get a little bit deeper on the backswing in regard to the hip motion, and I'm trying to get a little bit more turn in the upper body … last year I was kind of coming over the top of it just to kind of alleviate some of the back pain.

“Right now, if I do it correctly, it doesn't hurt my back, which is tremendous. For the longest time I was swaying a little bit, getting a little bit too much tilt in my upper body, and that was forcing my right hip to sway out and then I'd get too lateral going forward. Then I'd crunch down to try and lift the ball up and crunch down my back, and I just did it over and over and over again, and then sooner or later it would just kind of flare up and go out.”

Day is making the changes with a bevy of mis-matched equipment. In fact, he will use six different brands in his bag with a Ping driver, TaylorMade 3-wood, Mizuno irons, Artisan wedges, a White Hot 2-ball Odyssey putter and a Bridgestone XS golf ball.

Day missed the TOUR Championship for the second straight year in 2020 and hasn’t won on TOUR since his two-win season of 2018 – a drought coming up on near three years. He sits outside the top 40 in the world after spending a total of 51 weeks at the top back in 2015 and 2016.

“All I have to do is just go out and play … there are no excuses,” Day said ahead of starting back up this season while sitting 94th in the FedExCup.

“Playing bad golf is frustrating, being a competitor and not living up to what you think you should be living up to is very frustrating. This is my 14th season on TOUR now; I know that a career is long, but I'm trying to do everything I possibly can to get back to where I should be, and I feel like that's No. 1 in the world.

“If I look in the (recent) past, it's depressing, so I don't want to do that. If I look to the future, it gives me anxiety, so I don't want to do that. I can only control what I can do right now.”

A closer look at what Day has in the bag this week:

Driver: Ping G425 (10 degrees)
Shaft: TPT 14 LO 5

3-wood: TaylorMade SIM Max
Shaft: Mitsubishi Kuro Kage XTS 80TX

Irons: Mizuno JPX921 Tour (3-P)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold X7

Wedges: Artisan Prototype (50,54,60)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400

Putter: Odyssey White Hot 2 Ball

Ball: Bridgestone Tour B XS