Incredible bulk boosts ‘Mad Scientist’

THE golfer widely known as ‘the Mad Scientist’ has embarked on his most radical experiment yet — to render some of the world’s most traditional courses obsolete.

Bryson DeChambeau has given up on using craft and imagination to unpick the most strategic layouts. He’s going to bludgeon them into submission instead.

The 26-year-old spent the lockdown pumping iron and working on his speed training in order to swing the club faster. The change in his body shape and swing speed has been dramatic.

All he needed was to show up at the Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas last week wearing green and the transformation into the Incredible

Hulk would have been complete! Five years ago, the physics graduate won the US Amateur Championship weighing in at under 14 stones. He now weighs more than 17 stones.

Justin Rose could barely believe the difference as he played alongside DeChambeau and Dustin Johnson, who used to think he was a long hitter.

‘There’s just a massive change,’ said the Englishman. ‘One in his physique, for he’s now huge, but also his hitting. When I hit it well, I can carry it 300 yards but Bryson blew his drive by me on the first by at least 40 yards and he was a long way past Dustin as well. He definitely looks like he’s added a couple of weapons for sure.’

Colonial Country Club is the sort of old-style venue DeChambeau has in his sights.

The pride and joy of Ben Hogan, it’s full of so many tricky doglegs, he used to mischievously boast that a player would get into more trouble hitting straight drives than on any other course in the world.

That might be the case when aiming straight down the fairway and running out of room. But what if you take dead aim at the green instead? ‘There’s a lot of holes out here where I can just blow it over the bunkers and the hazards on the doglegs and leave myself flip wedges to the greens, which is nice,’ said DeChambeau. ‘I want to make them obsolete.’ DeChambeau reckons he’s only scratching the surface at present. ‘There’s only a couple of holes out here where I can swing at my full speed,’ he warned. ‘I want to keep working at this and keep getting stronger.’ You would think he would lose something in terms of finesse around the greens but there was no sign of that in the first two rounds.

On a course where he’s played poorly in the past, his new approach was paying dividends to the extent he was one shot off the lead held by American Harold Varner. Alongside him on a highclass leaderboard heading into the third round yesterday was Jordan Spieth, with Rory McIlroy two behind, and Rose three adrift.

Meanwhile, Tiger Woods has not entered this week’s Heritage Classic in South Carolina.

The 44-year-old is not likely to play tournament golf again until the middle of July.