Why Jason Day is playing the Bank of Utah Championship with just 13 clubs

Few club manufacturers have captured the imagination of the sport's gearheads in recent years quite like Avoda.

The American brand rocketed to prominence in 2024 when, in the hands of golf's great tinkerer Bryson DeChambeau, its irons won the U.S. Open. Since then, Avoda has garnered itself a growing cult following, boasting of making some of the best players irons on the market while introducing novel new advancements like bulge face irons and uniquely proportioned same and combo length iron sets.

As a direct to consumer brand, Avoda's irons are also refreshingly affordable. While the bulge face irons used by DeChambeau are uniquely expensive, a standard set of the combo or single length irons will set you back a little under £900, which isn't much to pay for tech that looks this good and has true major winning credentials.

Now, the brand has found its latest big name devotee in the form of Aussie former World No. 1 Jason Day.

Day has shown an affinity for supporting newer, more progressive brands since leaving his contracts with Nike and TaylorMade a couple of years back. 

In 2023 he became an investor and early adopter of Payntr Shoes, which have since gone on to become one of the most popular cult footwear brands in the game. He notoriously also set a new course for on-tour style as well, becoming the first major winner to ink a deal with California apparel brand Malbon golf.

Now, he has some equally IYKYK clubs to match his threads.

As reported by GolfWRX earlier this week, Day was spotted with the same curved face irons used by DeChambeau in his bag in the lead up to this weekend's Bank of Utah Championship. 

Sticking to his guns, Day placed the irons in the bag for the tournament's opening round, shooting a 3-under 68 to end the day tied for 21st and put himself in a strong position to make the cut going into the weekend. 

Equipped with what Avoda calls progressive curved face technology, the bulge face irons, while seeming counter-intuitive at first glance, actually work to counteract gear effect and reduce side spin on mishits, the result being tighter dispersion and a tour-level iron with tons of forgiveness.

“I actually hadn’t been hitting my irons great at all,” Day told reporters said after his opening round.

“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?’

“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. Stumbled across Avoda in a way that like obviously Bryson had some success with it. He won with the Avoda irons at the US Open at Pinehurst. But I just told my coach, just have a chat to the guys, see what they think.

“We did a lot of 3D printing of the iron head the way that I wanted to look at it. Obviously 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.”

Although 3D printed in the same method as Bryson's set, Day's irons do have a number of tweaks compared to the retail version available now. 

Going against Avoda's standard practice, Day's irons are reportedly built to more conventional variable lengths, and have different soles and head shapes.

Taking a couple of additional pages out of the DeChambeau playbook, Day's irons are equipped with 110 gram graphite shafts and JumboMax grips.

 Interestingly, Day also elected not to put a 4-iron from the brand into his set, taking to the course with 13 clubs as opposed to the standard 14.

“I’m missing a club,", Day continued. "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 (the 5-iron) 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.

“So right now I think we’re in the testing phase. You know, 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.

If you want to learn more about his new set, you can do so at Avoda's website.