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Some golfers think they might need 15 clubs, but Jason Day only has 13 in the bag this week at the Bank of Utah Championship.
But playing a $6 million PGA Tour event with one less tool in the bag than everyone else is not the biggest story about the former World No. 1’s gear this week.
That honor would fall to his new set of Avoda protype irons.
You may recall the Avoda name from last year, when Bryson DeChambeau had the company build him a set of 3D-printed irons which got approved for play just days before the 2024 Masters. DeChambeau went on to win the U.S. Open with those irons, which featured a unique bulge-and-roll design to help mitigate side spin on mishits, similar to woods.
Day’s prototypes are 5-AW combo set of muscle backs and shallow cavity backs and also feature what the company calls a “curved face” design. Instead of going with a single-length set like DeChambeau, Day’s irons are standard length.
In his first round since the BMW Championship in August, he opened with a three-under 68 on Thursday at Black Desert Resort. After the round, Day explained what led to this point; he said he felt like his iron game wasn’t where it needed to be, so he started looking at options with coach Collin Swatton. Day hasn’t ranked inside the top 100 in strokes gained: approach on the PGA Tour since 2016, when he was the No. 1 Player in the World.
“I’m a free agent there so I can go out and see what the best of the best is,” Day, who was most recently playing a set of TaylorMade P7CBs. “Stumbled across Avoda in a way that like obviously Bryson had some success with it. He won with the Avoda irons at the U.S. Open at Pinehurst. But I just told my coach, just have a chat to the guys, see what they think.
“[Swatton] got off the phone and called me and he goes, ‘Man, in all the years I’ve been doing this, I’ve never come across the guys the way they explained everything.'”
PGA Tour Live host Lisa Cornwell reported on Thursday’s broadcast that Swatton’s conversation with Avoda’s Tom Bailey and Tom Lewis lasted 90 minutes. That led to Day going out to meet the Avoda team in person and they 3D-printed multiple prototype sets of irons to his specifications.
Day still lost shots on approach in his first rounds with the new irons, but he led on that he doesn’t believe this is his final setup.
“There is a process there. After this week we’re obviously going to get back together and see what needs to kind of be improved,” Day said. I think currently right now I would like to see a little bit— a tiny bit more offset. Try and get a little bit more turn. If that has a little bit more offset it will actually elevate the ball a little bit more in the air, which would be nice.”
