After more than three months out of the public eye, World
Number 1 Jason Day will be under the microscope when he returns to golf at the
annual Tournament of Champions in Hawaii this week.

Three times a victor in 2016, Day is one of four Australians
to tee up at the event reserved for winners on the previous year’s PGA TOUR.

After a bumper year on the PGA TOUR Aaron Baddeley, Rod
Pampling and Greg Chalmers join Day at the Plantation Course at Kapalua for the
first tournament of the 2017 calendar year, Adam Scott is the only eligible
Australian electing to skip the tournament.

But it is Day who will attract the bulk of the attention
after a niggling back injury saw his 2016 season curtailed in September with
consecutive withdrawals at the BMW and TOUR Championships.

Day was also forced to cancel a planned visit to Australia
in November because of the injury but says he is refreshed after the lengthy
break.

"It was all good. I needed that time [off]," Day told US
Golf Digest magazine’s Dave Shedloski on site during a practice round rain
delay earlier this week.

"I got my mind refreshed as well. I was a bit stale."

Day is playing the Tournament of Champions for the fourth
time but despite some flashes of brilliance in his 12 previous rounds hasn’t
really come to terms with the Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw designed layout.

His best result came in 2015 when a brilliant final round 62
vaulted him from mid-field to T3 but his other two appearances, in 2011 and
again last year, yielded T9 and T10 finishes in fields that rarely top 35
players.

The course should play to Day’s strengths of length and deft
putting and he will be keen to make his first showing of 2017 a good one after
the disappointing end to last year.

However, after such a lengthy break from competitive golf
there will inevitably be some rust in his game and his expectations will be
tempered by that reality.

While Day’s game will be under intense scrutiny the three
other Australians in the field will be able to go about their business in
relative obscurity.

Rod Pampling and Aaron Baddeley make their third and fourth appearances
respectively while Greg Chalmers makes his tournament debut.

Neither Baddeley nor Pampling have found the Plantation
course to their liking in previous years with Baddeley breaking 70 just three
times in 12 previous rounds and Pampling managing the feat just twice in eight
rounds.

Neither has finished in the top 10 previously though both
will tee up with renewed confidence after a resurgent 2016 on the PGA TOUR.

Pampling’s victory at the Shriners Hospitals for Children
event in Las Vegas was his first in 10 years while Baddeley’s triumph at the
Barbasol tournament saw him earn back the card he lost for the first time in 15
years on the world’s biggest Tour.

Chalmers is the only unknown quantity among the Australian
contingent though the wide fairways at Kapalua offer plenty of forgiveness for
his occasionally wayward driving.

It is on the greens, though, that Chalmers will likely come
into his own.

One of the best putters in professional golf, Chalmers will
be in his element on the large, undulating surfaces of the Plantation Course.