Why Is Jason Day Still Using a TaylorMade Stealth Fairway Wood in 2026?
Here's a question that should bother anyone who's ever been talked into a new driver: Jason Day can put any fairway wood on earth in his bag. He's a former World No. 1 with the pick of every manufacturer, and as an equipment free agent he isn't even tied to a brand. So why, in 2026, is a several-year-old TaylorMade Stealth wood still in there?
It's not sentimentality. When a professional keeps an older club through cycle after cycle of "revolutionary" new releases, they're telling you something the marketing won't - that newer isn't automatically better, and that the right club is the one that performs, not the one that just launched. Let's get into why.
▶ Skip to around the 3-minute mark, where Day talks through his fairway wood. It's a rare window into how a tour pro actually thinks about a club he's chosen to keep.
What's Actually in Jason Day's Bag in 2026?
First, let's be accurate, because this is where a lot of "hot takes" get it wrong. Day plays a genuinely mixed bag - a Ping G430 LST driver, Avoda prototype irons and wedges, a TaylorMade Spider putter - and his fairway woods have evolved across the season rather than staying fixed.
Through 2026, equipment trackers have spotted different configurations at different events: TaylorMade Stealth 2 Plus 3- and 5-woods paired with a Stealth 7-wood in one set of bag photos; earlier in the year, a TaylorMade M6 3-wood and an even older Aeroburner alongside the Stealth 7-wood. Reports don't perfectly agree on which head is in which slot on which week - and that's the point. So we won't claim he's used one identical club forever. What's consistent is the theme:
The throughline: Day keeps rotating in older TaylorMade heads - the Stealth family prominent among them, including a 7-wood that dates to 2022 - even as he freely changes other parts of the bag. He isn't chasing the newest fairway wood. He's keeping the ones that work.
If He Can Use Any New Club, Why Doesn't He?
This is the interesting bit, and the answer applies just as much to your local Saturday comp as it does to the PGA Tour.
Tour pros don't change clubs on a schedule
Amateurs upgrade when a new model comes out. Pros upgrade when a new model tests better than what they already have - which is a much higher bar. A tour player will put a candidate club on a launch monitor next to their gamer and look at the actual numbers. If the new head doesn't clearly beat the old one for their swing, the old one stays. Every year, dozens of pros quietly keep clubs that are several generations old for exactly this reason.
Familiarity and confidence are real performance factors
A club you've hit ten thousand times is a known quantity. You know its exact carry, how it behaves under pressure, what a slightly heeled strike does. Confidence over the ball is worth real strokes, and it's not something a fresh-out-of-the-box club can give you. For a fairway wood in particular - often the club you reach for on a tight par 5 or a demanding par 3 - that trust matters enormously.
Head shape and turf interaction
Fairway woods are fussy. The way a sole interacts with the turf - how it glides versus digs - varies between models, and a shape that suits one player's angle of attack can feel awful to another. Older heads sometimes have a footprint, face height or sole camber a player simply prefers, and no amount of new tech compensates for a shape you don't trust looking down at it.
Launch, spin and forgiveness
The three numbers that define a fairway wood are launch, spin and forgiveness. Newer doesn't guarantee a better combination of the three for a specific golfer. A player who wants a particular launch-and-spin window off both the deck and the tee may find an older head delivers it perfectly, while the newest release spins too low, launches too high, or moves the CG somewhere unhelpful for their delivery.
The shaft-and-head combination
Pros don't game heads; they game head-and-shaft combinations. Day's woods are built with specific KBS graphite shafts, and a shaft-head pairing that's dialled in is hard to replicate. Swapping to a new head often means re-solving the entire equation — and if the old combination already produces the ballflight he wants, there's little upside to starting over.
The Jason Day Lesson: New Doesn't Always Mean Better
Golf equipment improves, but it improves incrementally. The jump from one generation of fairway wood to the next is usually measured in fractions - a touch more forgiveness here, a marginal gain in ball speed there - not the transformational leaps the ads imply.
So when a player with unlimited access to new gear chooses to keep an older wood, the lesson is simple and it's the opposite of what the industry sells: the best club for a golfer is the one that produces the best results for t
Day isn't behind the times. He's just refusing to fix something that isn't broken.
For recreational golfers, this is genuinely liberating. You do not need this year's release to play good golf. A club that's two, three or four generations old - bought at a fraction of the price - will very often perform within a hair of the newest thing, and may actually suit your swing better.
Where Australian Golfers Can Find Older TaylorMade Fairway Woods
Which leads somewhere useful. If the newest fairway wood isn't automatically the best one for you, the smart move is to find a proven older model in great condition - and pay used-market prices for it.
Used TaylorMade fairway woods at Rising Sun Clubs
We hand-source premium pre-owned clubs on regular buying trips to Japan, inspect and grade every one in plain English, and ship Australia-wide. That includes exactly the kind of TaylorMade fairway woods pros keep gaming - older Stealth, SIM, M2 and other TaylorMade generations — without new-club pricing. Many arrive with premium Japanese-market shafts fitted as standard, which is often a better spec than you'd find domestically.
Browse Used TaylorMade Fairway Woods →Stock is one-of-one and rotates as new shipments land - if you see the model and loft you want, it won't wait around.
Frequently Asked Questions
What fairway wood does Jason Day use in 2026?
Day carries older TaylorMade fairway woods, with the Stealth family - including a Stealth 7-wood - appearing regularly. As an equipment free agent he mixes and matches, and his exact setup has shifted through the season, with trackers reporting different combinations (Stealth 2 Plus 3- and 5-woods, an M6 3-wood and an Aeroburner among them) at different events. The consistent point is that they're older heads he's chosen to keep.
Why do tour pros use old golf clubs?
Because they only switch when a new club clearly out-performs their current one on a launch monitor for their specific swing. Familiarity, a trusted head shape, dialled-in launch and spin, and a proven shaft-and-head combination often make an older club the better performer, even when newer models exist.
Is a used TaylorMade fairway wood worth buying?
For most golfers, yes. Equipment gains are incremental, so a Stealth, SIM or M2-era fairway wood in good condition can perform within a fraction of the newest release at a fraction of the price - and may suit your swing better.
Where can I buy used TaylorMade fairway woods in Australia?
Rising Sun Clubs stocks pre-owned TaylorMade fairway woods sourced and graded from Japan, shipped Australia-wide. Browse the current TaylorMade range in our fairway woods collection.
5% off your first order at risingsunclubs.com.au