Brandel Chamblee explains why Jason Day keeps getting injured

Brandel Chamblee isn’t just one of the most enlightening and colorful voices in golf. He’s also one of the most prominent figures in the world of golf instruction, helping shape the minds of golfers everywhere which, in tern, influences the way they’re taught.

And Chamblee has some strong opinions on Jason Day’s golf swing.

Since rising to World No. 1 and winning his first major at the 2015 PGA Championship, Day’s career has been plagued by injuries. He’s collected seven victories despite them, but they continually reappear — most recently at the Arnold Palmer Invitational last week, where he withdrew with a back injury.

Asked about Jason Day’s swing ahead of the 2020 Players Championship, Chamblee responded with some insight into how Day’s swing is taking a toll on the golfer, physically:

“If you’ve got a short, quick golf swing, you’re going to have a short, quick career. I know especially if you’ve got a violent transition the way he’s had.”

He continued:

“[Jason Day] had a wonderful run in his 20s, nice run through his early 30s, but I can remember a point where he got up and said he was trying to shorten his golf swing, and I thought, that’s the exact opposite thing you need to be doing. Just go back and look at people with short, quick golf swings and you tell me which one of them had a wonderful extended career, from Doug Sanders to Nick Price. They were brilliant players, but they’re not Sam Snead, they’re not Julius Boros, they’re not Phil Mickelson.”

Chamblee has long contended, both in his book “The Anatomy of Greatness” and on-air during his Golf Channel segments, that players should make a free, unrestricted turn, allowing the left heel to raise off the ground. He contests that the resisting with the lower body against the upper body on the backswing creates a short golf swing that doesn’t mirror what golf’s best players did, and leads to injury.

This, he says, is the issue plaguing Jason Day’s golf swing.

He continued by imploring Jason Day to learn from athletes in other sports who have had long careers, like Federer and Brady,
and ended on an ominous note:

“I don’t know that the calamity is irreversible, but it might be.”

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