Jason Day wins the Farmer’s Insurance Open making it his third PGA Tour win. However, Day’s win did not come easy Sunday afternoon. Day fired a -2 under par round of 70 in his final round of the 72 hole event, which put him with three other players at -9 under. This prompted a four man playoff that included Day, JB Holmes, Scott Stallings, and Harris English. After the first playoff hole, that began on the par 5 18th hole, only two players remained with both Day and Holmes making birdies to advance. Jason day ended up only needing a par on the second playoff hole to beat Holmes and become the 2015 Farmer’s Insurance Open champion.
The two keys to Day’s success over the 4 day event was his distance off the tee and his iron play. He averaged a meaty 308 yards off the tee,when the field was only averaging 288 yards. Distance off the tee is paramount in today’s game with modern course designs at 7500-7600 yards in length each week on the PGA Tour. Day’s other strength this week was his accuracy with his irons. His green-in-regulation average was 71% when the fields was just 62%. Hitting more greens then the field allowed him to have more birdie and eagle looks during the week which he certainly took advantage of.
Jason Day is a fantastic ball striker and puts the club in a lot of great positions throughout his golf swing. These positions allow him to control his golf ball on a consistent basis under the gun in a high pressure environments. Above I’ve shown our first three positions we look for at GGGA: The Moveaway (step 1), Halfway back position (step 2), and Top of backswing (step 3). After studying Day’s swing it’s no secret to why he plays so well in the majors and is often roaming around the leader board on the weekends. I trust that over time Day will be a multiple major winner by the end of his career if he can stay injury free.
Below I’ve shown Jason Day’s downswing sequence beginning with our Step 4 position (the transition), followed by Step 5 (impact), and finally Step 6 (the finish position). With these great positions, Day has a very small variance between his face angle of the golf club and the path the golf club is traveling on through impact as I’ve seen from his Trackman data. The small variance is good as it means there will be less curvature of the golf ball on center strikes. This it what allows him to be typically long and accurate with both his woods and iron play.
Next week the Tour stops at Pebble Beach for the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. This event will bring out many of your favorite celebrities for the first 3 days of the event as they will be paired with a tour player. After the third round, they will cut the pro-celebrity portion down to only two teams, while the individual stroke play event also continues. Last year’s champion Jimmy Walker will return in good form as he looks to defend his title. Tune in next week for the Weekly Winner’s Circle!
