{"id":354763,"date":"2025-12-17T22:08:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T22:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/354763\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T22:08:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T22:08:09","slug":"major-champ-switched-driver-five-times-this-season-and-ended-up-with-a-seven-year-old-model","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/354763\/","title":{"rendered":"Major champ switched driver FIVE times this season \u2013 and ended up with a seven-year-old model"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tPlenty of tour pros tinker with their equipment, but this is next level. One former world No.1 has spent 2025 bouncing between brands, models, and generations \u2013 only to land on a driver that launched almost a decade ago.<\/p>\n

We all know that one guy who puts a new golf club in the bag more often than the rest of us change gloves.<\/p>\n

And tour pros, with their easy access to the latest equipment, tend to be more prone to the great club carousel than anyone.<\/p>\n

But even by tour standards, changing driver five times in a single season is wild.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s exactly what equipment free agent Jason Day has done.<\/p>\n

The former world No.1 and major champion has been playing big-stick hokey pokey in 2025, and the timeline of driver changes makes for remarkable reading.<\/p>\n

It started with the Ping G430 LST<\/a>, a low-spin, tour-proven monster that plenty of elite players have trusted over the last few years. <\/p>\n

Not long after, Day jumped ship to the TaylorMade Qi35<\/a> \u2013 but that experiment was shortlived.<\/p>\n

He soon found himself back with the G430 LST, before upgrading to its successor, the Ping G440 LST<\/a>, at the US Open. <\/p>\n

And just when it felt like he might finally settle down, Day turned up at the Grant Thornton Invitational with something nobody was expecting\u2026<\/p>\n

A TaylorMade M5<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yes, that M5.<\/p>\n

\"Jason<\/p>\n

First seen on Tour at the end of 2018 and released to the public in 2019, the TaylorMade M5 is pushing seven years old \u2013 basically ancient by modern equipment cycles.<\/p>\n

But, in its day, it was a heavyweight. Sliding weight tracks, carbon fiber, \u201cTwist Face\u201d, speed-injected resin, low spin, and a proper player\u2019s feel. It was trusted by plenty of TaylorMade staffers and, memorably, sat in the 2019 bags of Tiger Woods for his Masters win and Brooks Koepka for his PGA Championship triumph.<\/p>\n

For Day to roll back the years and put it back in play now says one thing: comfort beats innovation every time.<\/p>\n

Day isn\u2019t the first man to rely on outdated equipment. Aaron Rai still plays a TaylorMade M6 driver \u2013 released alongside the M5 \u2013 and has done so for years. It\u2019s the less adjustable sibling of the M5, but clearly offers him a flight and look he doesn\u2019t want to lose.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the real takeaway here.<\/p>\n

For all the talk of year-on-year improvements with each new release, even the best players in the world can end up trusting something familiar when the pressure\u2019s on. Jason Day\u2019s 2025 season has been a reminder that finding the right driver isn\u2019t always about finding the newest one.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, the answer\u2019s been sitting in the garage all along.<\/p>\n

Jason Day\u2019s 2025 driver carousel:<\/p>\n

Ping G430 LST<\/p>\n

TaylorMade Qi35 (core dot)<\/p>\n

Back to Ping G430 LST<\/p>\n

Ping G440 LST (US Open)<\/p>\n

TaylorMade M5<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just the big stick where Day has struggled to commit. His fairway woods have been almost as unsettled.<\/p>\n

He started the season with a TaylorMade SIM Max 3-wood, moved into the Qi10, and then upgraded again to the Qi35.<\/p>\n

And his higher-lofted wood has seen even more change.<\/p>\n

Day opened the year with a TaylorMade Stealth 7-wood, swapped it for the Qi35 7-wood, briefly benched that for a Callaway Apex Utility Wood, and then went straight back to the Qi35 7-wood.<\/p>\n

After five drivers, numerous fairway woods, and a season of searching, Jason Day may have finally proved that newer isn\u2019t always better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plenty of tour pros tinker with their equipment, but this is next level. One former world No.1 has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-354763","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}