2023 Players Championship: Top 10 Power Rankings at TPC Sawgrass

Jason Day is playing some of his best golf in nearly a decade and arrives to TPC Sawgrass as a past champ.

The 35-year-old has battled injury and death in the family in recent years, which contributed to his fall from world No. 1 to outside the top 100.

Day is back in the top 50 after recording his fourth straight top-10 with T-10th last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

He also took T-7th at the Farmers Insurance Open, fifth at the WM Phoenix Open, and T-9th at the Genesis Invitational. Three of these four are designated events and the other, the Farmers, will go down as having one of the better fields among non-designated.

Day won the 2016 Players Championship. He came out of the gates scorching with a course record-tying 9-under 63. A 66 on Friday gave Day (-15) a four-shot lead heading into the weekend. He shot even-par (73-71) the rest of the way and his lead ended at four.

That’s one of his four top-10s in 11 starts in Ponte Vedra Beach. His last top-10 was a T-8th (70-66-68-72) in 2019.

Day isn’t blitzing the field as far as distance goes like he did as a youngster, but he’s still long enough and straight enough to get by at most courses.

He’s 57th this season on the PGA Tour in driving distance (303.6), but 29th in driving accuracy (63.85%) to rank 12th in strokes gained tee to green per round (1.246).

That mixture can allow him to play from good positioning at a venue that demands it, while also not playing too defensively and missing any scoring chances.

"“You have to be very patient out there,” Day was transcribed by ASAP Sports in 2021. “It’s definitely a premium on hitting fairways. If you can hit fairways, that makes things a lot easier. You just don’t have to do too much.”"

Day is gaining strokes in all categories, including sixth in total (1.944) and 14th in putting (.698).

Even though his worst category is around the green (.190), he’s still second in scrambling (70.56%).