AUGUSTA 2 BRYSON 0

Dechambeau challenge a shambles with another failed attempt to use brawn instead of brain

BRYSON DECHAMBEAU is a smart cookie so at some point it may dawn on him that his strategy to overpower Augusta National has failed.

For the second Masters in the space of five months, the US Open champion arrived in Georgia promising shock and awe only for the reality – for half the tournament anyway – to turn out to be shockingly awful.

As a physics graduate, he must realise that at an elemental level something is wrong with the equation.

There was no way back after his opening 76 and a 75 on Saturday left him plugging the final-round gap before Justin Rose, Will Zalatoris and company set out to try to reel in Hideki Matsuyama in the main event.

A closing 75 yesterday saw Dechambeau (right, at the first hole on the final round) sign off at five over, down among the weekend dead men.

Six visits in, his best Masters remains his first when he was an amateur. The World No.5 finished 21st then. He is getting further away from a first Green Jacket rather than closer.

It turns out that Augusta National does not take kindly to attempts to brutalise it.

There were plenty of, ‘Oohs’, ‘Aahs’ and ‘Can you believe it?’ laughter from the reduced galleries yesterday as he went about his business with the smoothness and grace of Frankenstein’s monster.

But as on every other round except Friday, the ball all too often ended up in a different zipcode from the one he envisaged. A case in point was the eighth hole, where a scoreable par-five turned into a scramble to save face by a tee shot which ended up way right in the trees. He failed and ended up bogeying it.

Two more bogeys at 11 and 12 from an increasingly frustrated Dechambeau followed. An eagle at 13 after an approach to 5ft briefly cheered him but a soggy end to his attempt to carry Rae’s Creek at 15 led to a seven – his fourth double bogey of the week.

Those numbers rarely make for a Sunday evening visit to Butler Cabin. Dechambeau averaged 323 yards off the tee in this Masters – he launched one first-round bomb 345 yards – but when a lot of those yards are in the wrong direction Augusta can be an unforgiving place.

Of those who made the cut, he was bottom in driving accuracy.

He was not helped either by scratchy putting yesterday but the key to this southern masterpiece has always been to find the less murderous spots on the killer greens. Some of the areas the Californian landed himself in with his attack-at-all-costs plan – foliage, water, sand – made that impossible.

Conservatism is not a natural fit for Dechambeau, but reverting to some sort of pragmatism may be needed. He can wrap up a change of approach in some highfalutin talk if he likes and so remain the smartest guy in the room, but it is time to think again.

Brysonball has not worked around Augusta. It is back to the drawing board for the golf scientist.