AUGUSTA..2 BRYSON .... 0
DeChambeau fails again to overpower this tough course
BRYSON DECHAMBEAU is a smart cookie so at some point you’d imagine it would start to 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 have turned 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 into the tournament after his opening 76 and a Saturday 75 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 sign off at five over, down among the weekend dead men.
Six visits in, his best Masters remains his first one when he was still 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 DeChambeau 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 to the one he envisaged.
A case in point was the eighth hole where a scoreable par-five was 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 five feet 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 off the week.
Those numbers rarely make for a Sunday evening visit to Butler Cabin. DeChambeau averaged 323 yards off the tee
– he launched one bomb 345 yards in round one – but when a lot of those yards are in completely the wrong direction Augusta can prove to be an unforgiving place. Of those that made the cut, he was rock bottom in driving accuracy.
He was not helped either by some scratchy putting 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 found himself in with his attack at all costs plan during the course of the tournament – foliage, water, sand – made that impossible.
Conservatism is not a natural fit for DeChambeau but a reversion to some sort of pragmatism may be needed. He can wrap a change of approach up in some highfalutin talk if he likes so he can 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.