AUGUSTA, Ga. – Bryson DeChambeau was due to cancel Augusta National last fall. He had a convincing 6-shot victory at the US Open, overwhelming the famous Winged Foot. He came to the Masters with a plan to do the same.
But something funny happened on the way to a green jacket.
DeChambeau hit her far at Augusta, but offshore. The underrated short game that helped him and disappointed Winged Foot. He made 18 birds and one eagle a week – 20 under par, which was Dustin Johnson’s record winning score. But … DeChambeau also made 11 bogeys, two doubles and one triple.
“The stress of the tournament, just the spotlight, everything,” he said. “Everything took a toll. It was a combination of a few things that climbed my brain.”
And now she’s back again, a little weaker, with a better understanding and appreciation both for the diet she’s committed to gaining weight and distance, and for the need for precision around a golf course that demands it.
But that doesn’t mean he’s going to tiptoe between the dog and the azaleas at the Masters this week, navigating carefully around Augusta National.
Bryson DeChambeau intends to try again to blister the place.
“I had to look back at what didn’t happen, what happened, what didn’t allow me to perform at the highest level I did at the US Open,” DeChambeau said. spring, while trying to adjust his body. “My drive wasn’t the longest at the US Open, but I did amazing, I tangled it amazingly. My iron play was incredible and I drove it pretty well.”
However, this did not happen after he drove on Magnolia Lane.
“I look at Augusta … there were a lot of opportunities that I missed with the embedding, the setting and the iron play,” he said. “I wouldn’t say that the driver necessarily got me in trouble for the most part, but there were certainly times when my putter, feather and iron game worked.”
DeChambeau has a simple solution: keep working on it. Try to increase the speed of the club head. Keep trying to add distance.
Even though it didn’t work the first time he brought his scientific methods to Augusta National, DeChambeau still left, gaining a few pitches on the field.
It makes others think of him and watch their own games. As he improves and follows his plan, others have tried to imitate him and lost their way.
Rory McIlroy set the best example. While the four-time major champion would never become a eater and try to gain 40 pounds, as DeChambeau did, he certainly saw the benefits of trying to get more speed in his swing, in a effort to hit the ball. Further.
“I would be lying if I said it had nothing to do with what Bryson did at the US Open,” McIlroy said after missing the relegation to the Players’ Championship. “I think a lot of people have seen that and been like that, if that’s how they’re going to establish golf courses in the future, [distance] it helps. It really helps. “
Since mid-February, McIlroy has lost two cuts and recovered early from WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play after the worst loss in a decade. He has two top-10s, but even those came with warning signs – he shot 72-76 at the weekend at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and finished 71st at the WGC-Workday Championship at The Concession. Both times he had a chance to win. He both staggered over the weekend.
“I thought getting more speed was a good thing, and maybe just me – to the detriment of my swing,” McIlroy said. “I got there, but I just need to get him back a little.”
McIlroy is not alone.
“It simply came to our notice then [DeChambeau is] Doing golf courses doesn’t make it any easier, “said Justin Thomas.” I think it’s extremely underrated and there has been no talk of how right it hits him to swing at 135 mph. I can hit it pretty damn crookedly at 116 or 117 mph. He hits it right at 135. And he puts it very well.
“For me, I can find 10 or 15 or 20 more [yards] if I need to or if I can. I would love to fly it 330 every time. No offense to Bryson, I’m not going to put in 40 pounds. I don’t have the build or stature for that. I have always tried to make the most of what I can. “
DeChambeau has put a lot of thought and effort into this in the last two years. He didn’t just start drinking protein shakes and lifting heavy weights in one day. Under the guidance of coach Greg Roskopf, who also works with the Denver Broncos, he began implementing a plan more than two years before committing in the fall of 2019.
The results were quick. An initial weight gain of 25 kilograms. He added a length on the tee that now sees him driving the PGA Tour at a driving distance of 320.8 meters. (For the record, McIlroy is third at 319.1).
DeChambeau admits he could have gone too far with all the meat, potatoes, eggs and other foods he ate. His daily allowance had reached 6,000 calories. The realization that it was time to adjust his diet came to Masters.
In November, DeChambeau said during the tour and again weeks later that he simply did not feel well. He had some balance problems. He even wondered if he had contracted the coronavirus; did a COVID-19 test before the third round. It came back negative.
“In fact, I’ve been to more doctors, more people, trying to figure out what that is,” he said. “I got a few MRIs. I went to a doctor in my inner ear, I did eye tests, eye pressure, ear pressure, I even did ultrasound on my heart, ultrasound on my throat to see the blood flow and how in that things were moving through different areas of my body. Everything turned out very, very well. “
DeChambeau also explained that he saw some fairly significant changes in the stomach, especially inflammation. He began working on what he called “gut health” to alleviate the problems.
That meant changing his food intake a little. So he returns to Augusta National a little weaker, but with the same distance and the same plan of attack. However, this time the preparation is different.
Prior to the November event, he took a month off from the PGA Tour and focused only on the Masters. He thought of using a 48-inch driver to try to gain even more distance to try to shorten Augusta National even further.
Although he is still focused on distance, this time he will be working a lot on other parts of his game. It will also come with positive results. Arnold Palmer won the Invitational and was in contention during the Players’ Championship.
Distance is an advantage at Augusta National. DeChambeau knows that. However, it is not imperative to be at the top of the rankings to come early on Sunday night. Recent winners, such as Patrick Reed (287.4 meters from the tee, 18th place in the tournament) or Danny Willett (292.9, 129th place) prove that you don’t need an extra length to take home a green jacket. But it is very helpful to be able to drive the hopper to the first hole or to drive the green to par-4 third or to have short beasts in holes 13 and 15 of par-5. At Augusta National, all parts must work.
Consider this: DeChambeau played with 63-year-old Bernhard Langer in the final round in November. Langer won both Masters before the birth of 27-year-old DeChambeau. When they were paired, Langer was 80 yards behind DeChambeau on the tee. Langer shot 71; DeChambeau shot 73.
“I was just scared to watch him swing and how hard they hit him, and from time to time I had to tell myself, to move on, not to look and play my game and figure out what to do. to do, ”said Langer, who also played with McIlroy during round three.
DeChambeau seems to spend every waking moment doing the same thing. This is certainly the case when on a golf tournament, often under floodlights in the running area, looking for the right combination of shafts, attics, swing speed and anything else needed to launch the ball into orbit.
And now comes another blow to the Masters, with its go-for-it plan still in place.
“I’m just trying to make winning tournaments,” he said. “I don’t really care what people think. It’s only if I can do it. Look, if I fail, I’ll make every effort to figure out why I failed. So if the skeptics turned out to be wrong, don’t worry. I appreciate the skeptics, the ones who make me think about it more – don’t I? – and makes me go down the rabbit hole even deeper. “