ORLANDO — Jason Day’s swing was so out of sorts at the end of last year he admitted Saturday, “I had zero idea what was going on.”
The first step was reuniting with Colin Swatton, the man who was Day’s swing coach when the Aussie ascended to No.1 in the world, but also was his caddie and mentor, someone who has been described as a second father who guided Day out of some difficult times as a pre-teenager.
After trading texts and phone calls the last few months, Day and Swatton were back together after seven years. They got together in a lab, working his swing and putting and the results have been immediate.
Day overcame three consecutive bogeys on the front nine Saturday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, finished with three straight birdies and a 69, to put himself in contention for first win in nearly two years.
At 7-under par for the tournament, Day is fourth, three shots behind leader Collin Morikawa (67), who is one shot ahead of Russell Henley (67) and two in front of Jupiter’s Corey Conners (69).
“Even though I know a good chunk of swing stuff, it’s nice to have someone kind of standing over your shoulder, like kind of guiding you where you need to be, just kind of keeping you in the bumper rails,” Day said.
Day put himself on the radar with a 64 in the second round, his lowest score in 41 rounds at the Palmer. He is the first player to shoot 64 or better at Bay Hill since 2021 when Keegan Bradley carded a 64 in round three.
Swatton is not the only change to Day’s team. Day got most of the old band back together with Swatton, performance coach Jason Goldsmith and his old trainer who helped him through back injuries that started nearly a decade ago.
Swatton and Goldsmith were part of the team when Day reached No. 1 in 2015 and remained there for 51 weeks.
“It’s nice to be able to pull the old-school team back,” Day said. “Everyone’s kind of pulling in the right direction, which is great. That’s kind of the hardest thing is when you’re the leader of the team, you got to kind of nudge everyone where you want them to go.
“So it’s nice to be able to have a team that really cares about what I’m trying to achieve out on the golf course.”
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That team could only do so much during Saturday’s round. It was on Day to overcome his rough stretch on holes 7, 8 and 9 in which he missed a 5-foot putt, a 7-footer and went from the rough to the bunker on No. 9.
Day had caught the leaders before that stretch and had to battle back.
“Being out here for so long I think you just learn to put it behind you,” the 37-year-old Day said. “Especially on a course like this, you know that everyone’s going to make mistakes so you just got to try and get everything kind of level headed and then just start hitting some greens.”
What helped was Jupiter’s Shane Lowry, the 36-hole leader, started his day with two bogeys, got those back with a pair of birdies, and then had two doubles in a span of three holes on the back nine.
Lowry shot 76.
Wyndham Clark, who joined Lowry in the final group, also started the day with two bogeys and never recovered, finishing with a 76.
With winds expected to start blowing again and the course becoming firmer, Day knows the challenge ahead.
“I think it’s going to be a lot more difficult,” Day said about Sunday’s final round. “We all know how hard the greens are and how hard the golf course is. So it’s just kind of survive.
“If I can get close to the back side, who knows what happens. But you just got to try and cut into the lead through the first nine.”
Tom D’Angelo is a senior sports columnist and reporter for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at tdangelo@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Jason Day has reunited with old swing coach; 3 back at Arnold Palmer
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