Bulked-up Bryson could change an entire sport if he masters Augusta

His ability to hit the ball 400 yards will take out major challenges here and force golf to rein in big hitters

NICKNAMES attach themselves easily to the ever-fascinating Bryson DeChambeau. After the Mad Scientist and the Incredible Bulk, it is now time to welcome to Augusta National... the Master Showman. What better way to build up anticipation for your appearance down Magnolia Lane this week than a month in the shadows, after leaving stage left with the promise you’ll be even bigger by the Masters?

How about a sensational Instagram post a fortnight ago proclaiming you can now carry the ball 400 yards through the air? DeChambeau doesn’t need a chauffeurdriven Cadillac to make his entrance tomorrow, he needs a drum roll. Or the hyperbolic Michael Buffer who introduces the boxers in the ring at the big fights.

Whoever thought there’d be a performer who’d actually take the spotlight away from defending champion, Tiger Woods? After his demolition of one traditional venue in Winged Foot to win the US Open, the game is in thrall to discover how big Bryson fares against the mighty Augusta.

The critical question is this: has he found the key to carrying the ball 350 yards through the cool Georgia air in November? If he can do that, a Xanadu awaits alongside possibly the largest green jacket ever bestowed.

The fairway at the opening hole would be 20 yards wider because the perilous bunker that guards the right side at 330 yards would no longer be in play. Ditto the par-five second, where he’d also benefit from 40 yards of roll on the steep downhill fairway.

He could drive the green at the 350-yard par-four third, while two more cavernous fairway bunkers at the fifth would also be out of play. The same again regarding another at the par-five eighth, while he could have nothing more than a wedge to the par-five 13th if he carries every tall pine guarding the left-hand side from the tee. At the 18th, two more fairway bunkers would also be rendered obsolete.

No wonder so many people are looking at this Masters as perhaps the tipping point in the eternal battle to rein in the distance achieved by the game’s longest hitters.

AUGUSTA National has been here before. Jack Nicklaus once destroyed the place so mercilessly with his length that course founder Bobby Jones was left to declare: ‘He plays a game with which I am not familiar.’ Ian Woosnam, all 5ft 5in of him, caused another inquest when he won in 1991 by driving over the bunkers on the 18th to leave himself with just a pitch to the green. And then there was Tiger, who caused the biggest rumble of all in 1997, seemingly playing his approach to every par-four with a wedge in his hands.

Augusta responded i n timehonoured fashion by pushing the tees back further and further to the point where the course now measures 7,475 yards, or 520 yards more than it did in 2001. They also pinched i n the fairways by introducing a first cut of rough.

But what is the solution this time if DeChambeau, or any of the other mammoth hitters for that matter, wins in the manner of the Golden Bear or Tiger by taking the fairway bunkers out of play? Augusta is one of the few venues with the room to push everything back still further, but do we really want a near 8,000-yard golf course?

Will this be the Masters, therefore, that forces the governing bodies to finally act and limit how far the golf ball travels?

A chilly autumn wind might prove the final arbiter on this occasion, of course, but the one thing we learned at Winged Foot is not to take any of DeChambeau’s outrageous pronouncements lightly. He has promised to bring a new approach to playing Augusta National, even experimenting with a 48-inch driver that’s fully three inches longer than standard and the maximum permitted. That’s the sort of shaft length they use in the long-driving freak shows, where they’re firing away at wide-open targets. Is Bryson now big enough and strong enough to harness such a weapon to cope with the demands of Augusta?

Of course, the place is not all about long hitting. You have to be able to putt as well. And here’s another fascinating fact about Bryson, courtesy of the game’s stats guru, Justin Ray. Over the past three years, there have been 58 players who have played eight or more rounds at Augusta — and DeChambeau just happens to rank 58th and dead last when it comes to strokes gained in putting.

His detractors point out that it’s because the green-reading maps he studies avidly when playing every other course are not permitted.

His poor putting certainly explains why his best finish to date at the Masters is a modest 21st place — and that while still an amateur. Against that, the 27-year-old has made only three appearances as a pro and experience is so important around Augusta.

Lost also amid the obsession with his big hitting are the dramatic strides he’s made with his putting over the past 12 months. At Winged Foot he won the US Open by putting better than anyone else in the final round, not by outdriving them.

If the governing bodies are watching Bryson through trembling fingers, the same might be said for Tiger’s vast army of supporters. Now one month shy of his 45th birthday, was the wonder of his victory 18 months ago his final magic trick?

There would obviously be no shame in that. After all, it felt like a Masters miracle at the time. This year, Woods has played just seven events since February with a best finish of tied 37th. It’s a depressing sequence offering no logical reason why he can contend other than that we’ve been here before and he’s proved everyone wrong.

You might have to go back to Rory McIlroy’s final-nine blowout in 2011 to find the last time his prospects were so little discussed. We keep hearing it is only a matter of time before he wins a green jacket and completes his career Grand Slam but the inconvenient truth is that time is flying. This will be his

11th Masters, and only a handful of winners played in that many before achieving their first success.

From England’s gifted corps, the leading hope is Tyrrell Hatton but there are others in Tommy Fleetwood, Paul Casey, Justin Rose and the evergreen Lee Westwood who ought to benefit, like Rory, from their position under the radar.

For the Master Showman, of course, it’s all a different world. You can dress up Bryson versus Augusta any way you want: brawn against brain; science versus art. It promises to be a riveting spectacle and might just end up changing an entire sport.