Dechambeau is the talk of the Masters
Effort to bulk up to improve power game paid off at U.S. Open
The scene was straight out of the World Long Drive Championship spectacle. Bryson DeChambeau would consider that a compliment.
He took a slow practice swing, then the next one at full force. Eyes focused, deep breath, chest fully expanded, exhale. Another violent practice swing. And another. Just then, a leaf blew in front of his ball. He stooped over to flick it away, and started the routine over until he was ready to smash his tee shot at TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas. Wait.
Dechambeau walked over to his bag, removed a wrench and tightened the screws on the bottom of his driver.
Joaquin Niemann couldn’t suppress a smile as he watched this unfold. It was worth the wait. The golf ball came off the club at 198 mph. It hit a small tree right of the fairway, dropping straight down and robbing Dechambeau of what he figured would have been a 400-yard drive.
“I killed it,” he said.
Moments like these are why Dechambeau is the talk of golf going into the Masters.
It has been this way since golf returned in June from the COVID-19 pandemic and Dechambeau showed up with his incredible bulk, more than 40 pounds of muscle and mass, all to support a swing that is producing prodigious shots. He has driven into groups on the green on a par 4. He powered (and putted) his way to the lowest score ever at Winged Foot to win the U.S. Open by six shots.
And he says he is just getting started.
“He went to the nth degree of everything we have available to us — science, Trackman, biomechanics, everything,” Rory Mcilroy said. “Now that we have all that, Bryson is the personality that goes down that rabbit hole more than anyone else. I think that’s a credit to him. He’s worked his (tail) off and it’s paying off hugely.
Next stop: Augusta National, where this experiment all began. It was a year ago in September when Dechambeau watched Kyle Berkshire win the World Long Drive Championship.
“The real light-bulb moment,” Dechambeau said. “I said, ‘If I could do that and hit it straight, what would happen? ‘That was the question that inspired me to go down this road.”