[Photo: Getty]
Jason Day returned to competition this week after a two-month break from tournament golf with some interesting new irons. The 37-year-old Queenslander opened with a sharp three-under-par 68 at Black Desert Resort in Utah to begin the 2025 Bank of Utah Championship.
Now an equipment free agent, Day has tested a variety of iron setups this year. His latest experiment is with Avoda irons, a boutique Pittsburgh-based brand that first turned heads when Bryson DeChambeau used its prototypes en route to winning the 2024 US Open at Pinehurst.
“Hadn’t been hitting my irons great at all. I decided to have a chat to my coach, Colin (Swatton), and say, do you reckon we can go out and just maybe have a look?” Day said. “I don’t have an OEM sponsor so I’m a free agent there so I can go out and see what the best of the best is.”
After an introduction to Avoda’s team, the pair began a detailed design process. “He got off the phone,” Day said, “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.’ So we met in person. Did a lot of 3D printing of the iron head the way that I wanted to look at it.”
The results were immediate. Day found 12 of 14 fairways and hit 14 greens in regulation during his opening round. Still, the 2015 PGA champion said he’s seeking more offset to help launch the ball higher and plans to relay his feedback to Avoda engineers next week. His setup now includes graphite shafts and JumboMax grips.
“So instead of playing the X7s that I have played in the past, which is 136-gram shaft, I would play a 110-gram shaft, which is nice,” he said. “And then playing the JumboMax grips as well. So there is just number of things from the curved irons to the graphite shafts and the JumboMax grips. The theory I think I have the same profile shaft from 60-degree all the way up to driver.
OTHER NEWS: Why the Masters gave spots to Australian Open and five other national opens, according to the club chairman
“The goal is to be able to swing, just pretty much have one swing like whatever ball flight you want, whether that’s a draw or a fade. For me it’s a draw. To go up there and hit a draw and pretty much put the same swing on it and hopefully it produces the same shot over and over again.”
Day admitted he’s not yet finalised his setup—his bag currently holds only 13 clubs. “I’m missing a club,” he said. “I would like to play a 23-degree, and that would fit perfectly between the 21-degree and the 5-iron that I’m playing. It goes about 230, 229. The 21-degree Apex, Callaway, that goes about 250 in the air, so I need something right smack between it and that should cover the whole thing.”
Already guaranteed entry into next season’s PGA Tour signature events after finishing 41st in the FedEx Cup standings, Day is treating the fall as a low-pressure testing phase. “We still got to get the gappings right, have to get the spins right, so obviously that is going to be more testing coming up for me,” he said. “But that’s something that we have to kind of mess with the grooves a little bit, try and make sure that like we get a little bit more spin, but also make sure that they’re up to regulation. Hopefully that makes things hitting shots into the greens a lot easier.”
