AUGUSTA, Ga. — Jason Day played the first round of the 2025 Masters Tournament wearing an Augusta National–approved outfit, after the golfer was asked a year ago by the club to remove a vest he was wearing. Because of last year’s controversy, Day and his apparel sponsor, Malbon Golf, had to send his Masters clothing scripting, practice rounds included, to Augusta National ahead of this year’s event.
“Yeah, there was a back-and-forth,” Malbon founder and CEO Stephen Malbon told Front Office Sports from his rental house a few miles from the course on Wednesday evening. On Thursday, Day shot a two-under-par 70 wearing a black hat and pants, and a colorful Futura poly performance polo from Malbon Golf’s collaboration collection with the artist formerly known as Futura 2000. The brand wanted Day to wear identical pants, but Malbon said Augusta National requested that the golfer either wear the patterned top or bottoms, not both.
Earlier in the week, Day addressed the issue himself on the Dan on Golf show, and during a media interview at the course said that Malbon “kind of cut everything in half” for the Masters.
It’s a much different process than Day’s first Masters with Malbon Golf in 2024, when a vest he wore in the second round that read “Malbon Golf Championship” in extra-large print created the ensuing controversy. Malbon said he didn’t realize that outfit would be taboo.
“It was never our intention to do anything except make people maybe think, ‘Wow, if this dude looks cool, and he looks like me and I could be him, maybe I’ll start picking up golf,’” he said. The company was founded by Malbon, 42, in 2017 as a way to shift some long-held trends in golf.
“We’re a lifestyle brand inspired by golf, similar to how Ralph Lauren is inspired by polo,” he said. “But, most people who wear Ralph Lauren, historically, have never played polo.” Several of Day’s outfits since the 2024 Masters have raised some eyebrows, too, like the sweatsuit he wore at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
“We got our hands smacked,” Malbon said of the reaction from the PGA Tour, which has a vague dress-code policy that only requires clothing to be “consistent with currently accepted golf fashion.” Day hasn’t been fined by the PGA Tour, Malbon said, “but it’s probably close to that point,” if he keeps wearing certain things.
Day joined Malbon last year after he left longtime sponsor Nike following the 2023 season. Malbon’s frustration isn’t aimed at one specific tournament or tour but rather the overall long-held accepted fashions in golf.
“The governing bodies of golf and the traditionalists—they say they want to grow the game,” he said. “They say they want more diversity. They say they want younger people. They say they want more women. They say all of these things, but then they do things like they want different type of people playing, and the first time there’s someone that looks a teeny bit different, it’s like, ‘Here we fucking go.’”
Day is Malbon’s only ambassador on the PGA Tour, but the brand expects to add more soon at the end of this year. “There are some people [whose contracts] are up that we’re friends with,” Malbon said. Malbon also sponsors Charley Hull and Jeongeun Lee on the LPGA Tour.
Day sported a floral-like green collared shirt with black pants and a belt that said 'Malbon' for the first round of the Masters on Thursday, April 10, 2025. Day's flashy Malbon Golf Championship vest was a talking point among patrons in 2024. On Friday morning, Day returned to the course to finish his first round and wore the sweater for those few holes. The Masters and Augusta National asked him to remove the sweater before he started his second round.
Malbon began in 2017 by Stephen and Erica Malbon, who create stylish gear worn by Day and LPGA golfer Minjee Lee. The company's mission says it 'sought to honor the heritage of golf while opening it up to a broader community, blending time-honored values with a fresh, creative spirit.'
Jason Day, who turned plenty of heads with his outfit choices at last year's Masters, said he won't be wearing such bold ensembles after Augusta National requested he sport a more reserved look this week. The Australian former world No. 1, who left Nike in early 2024 to join Malbon Golf, had some interesting outfits ready for the year's first major this week but has since had to make changes.
"We kind of did, but we kind of cut everything in half," Day, 37, said Tuesday. "With what we're supposed to wear, they said that's a little bit much, but that's OK. We had to send it in. I think I'm on the short list of guys that have to send their scripting in now. I get it. It was a little bit much on Thursday."
At the 2024 Masters, Day wore baggy blue pants and a loud sweater vest that featured "No. 313. Malbon Golf Championship" in large block letters across the front when he showed up on the Friday to complete his first round alongside Tiger Woods. But when he showed up for the second round later that day, the vest was gone. He later said tournament organizers had asked him to remove the garment.
Day, who finished runner-up in his Masters debut in 2011 and this week will make his 14th start at Augusta National, said he was fine altering his outfits and did not want to be a distraction. "It's good. I understand. We're here for the tournament," Day said. "This is why we come every April. We're here to play the tournament and I understand. We'll do what we can with what we have fashion-wise and enjoy playing the tournament."
Of all the nations, who’d have thought Australia would be the most hellbent on making golf style statements at the Masters? Cameron Smith practiced in a four-way stretch navy sport coat on Wednesday, and there was much handwringing over what Jason Day would wear Thursday.
After last year’s controversial loud vest, Day was the only player asked to submit his scripting to Augusta National in advance of the 2025 Masters, a conversation that began in February 2025. The white, green and black spray paint pattern of Day’s 2025 Masters Thursday shirt is the work of Futura, a graffiti-artist of remarkable history who worked alongside Jean Michele-Basquiat and Keith Haring in New York City in the 1980s.
He painted album covers and stage backdrops for The Clash, and in more recent years has enjoyed commercial projects with companies like Nike, Uniqlo and BMW. The word is, Day was told he could wear Futura’s pattern on his bottoms with a solid top, or as a shirt with solid bottoms—but not both, as originally submitted.
Where is the line of what’s appropriate for competitors at the most elegant professional golf event of the year? Collars mandatory? Tiger’s famous mock and Rory’s blade beg to differ. No drawstrings? Seems reasonable until you remember they are a common feature on rain pants. No logos larger than three-inches by five-inches is a PGA Tour guideline that forced designer Stephen Malbon to make alterations.
Though Malbon joked (?) he might print his eponymous logo at the proper size a few dozen times down each sleeve in a new design. As I wrote in the most recent Golf Digest Style Issue, the best dress codes are unwritten. When rules are set in words, the mischievous will find ways to break them. It’s better to encourage, and if need be, enforce a spirit. Perhaps that spirit is: look buttoned up.
Jason Day appeared on Skratch's "Dan on Golf Show" and revealed his outfit at the 2025 Masters 'would have been a lot crazier than last year' had tournament officials approved his initial choice. Day had been a regular at Augusta National Golf Club since 2011. Day wore a sweater vest with "No. 313. Malbon Golf Championship" in bold blue-and-red lettering across his chest in 2024 that Augusta National officials eventually asked him to take off.
Day revealed he had to alter his outfit choices for this year's tournament when the initial look he and Malbon came up with was not approved. Day said during a recent appearance on Skratch's "Dan on Golf Show" with Dan Rappaport that the 2025 outfit would have been crazier than last year. Day finished in a tie for 30th at last year's Masters.
Day began his partnership with Malbon Golf at the start of the 2024 PGA Tour season. Day was approached by Masters officials asking him to "take that vest off" by the end of the rain-delayed opening rounds last year in 2024. Day is scheduled to play in a group with Phil Mickelson and Keegan Bradley during Thursday and Friday, April 10 and 11, 2025, of the 2025 Masters. They tee off beginning at 9:58 a.m. Eastern time as part of Thursday's first round.
