So far, so good for DeChambeau
Body makeover for professional golfer paying early dividends
Some 50 years ago at the 1970 Western Open, I caddied for
Bob Lunn. Lunn, a top-20 golfer at the time, was a protégé of Haggin Oaks PGA professional Tommy LoPresti. A teammate of Johnny Miller at San Francisco’s Lincoln High, Lunn won the 1963 U.S. Public Links and turned professional in 1965. He won back-toback tour events in 1968 and was the PGA Tour’s Comeback Golfer of the Year.
When I looped for him in 1970, he was 25 years old, stood 6-foot-3 and weighed in the neighborhood of 240 pounds. He was a bomber off the tee. In 1972 he beat Gary Player by two shots to win the Atlanta Golf Classic for his sixth victory on tour. He then decided to lose weight, shedding some 60 pounds off his frame, and along the way Lunn lost his game. He was off the tour in 1980 at age 35 and spent the rest of his career as a club pro in the Sacramento area. The weight loss seemed to derail his career.
David Duval was the equal of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson in the late 1990s. From 1997 through 2000 he was a topfive money winner each year. He won the 1997 Tour Championship, shot a final-round 59 to win the Bob Hope Desert Classic, won the 1999 Players Championship, and took home the claret jug by winning the British Open in 2001. It was his 13th PGA Tour win and it was also his final one. He went on an extensive program to bulk up and ended up with a litany of back problems.
The year after winning the British Open, Duval was 80th on the money list. In 2003 he found himself floundering in 211th place. Except for a runner-up finish at the U.S. Open in 2009, Duval’s career was basically over. He is now an analyst for the Golf Channel.
All of which brings us to 2020 and the most recent winner of the Rocket Mortgage Classic at the venerable Donald Ross-designed Detroit Golf Club. Bryson DeChambeau manhandled Detroit GC for four straight days and beat Matthew Wolff by three shots to take home the trophy. It was DeChambeau’s sixth win on tour over the course of a fouryear career. The most eye-popping statistic of the weekend was that Bryson was No. 1 last week in total driving. He also was No. 1 in putting statistics. That’s a pretty good formula for success.
Bryson was born in Fresno and spent his childhood in the Central Valley town of Clovis. He attended Clovis East High School and was a top junior player during his formative years. He won the California State Junior in 2010 as a 16-year-old. He received a golf scholarship to Southern Methodist University in Dallas and was an immediate impact player at the collegiate level. In 2013 he won the Trans-Mississippi Amateur, the following year he took home the Erin Hills Intercollegiate title, and in 2015 he won both the NCAA Championship as an individual as well as the United States Amateur later
that summer. He had just completed his junior year at SMU. However, he decided to forego his senior campaign because SMU’s major sports programs had once again faced restrictions from the NCAA. Bryson would be unable to defend his NCAA Championship the following May. All SMU teams would miss their playoffs.
Instead he played in Web.com and Australian Tour events as well as major amateur tourneys. He stayed in the amateur ranks through the spring of 2016. In the winter of 2015 he finished second in the Australian Masters. DeChambeau was the low amateur at the Masters after making the cut and finishing tied for 21st. He turned professional immediately after the Masters and continued to play on the mini-tours. He won the DAP Championship in Cleveland on the Web. com Tour in September and ended up getting promoted to the PGA tour for the 2016-17 wraparound season.
DeChambeau had learned to win on every level and he recorded his first PGA Tour win during his rookie campaign at the Quad Cities John Deere. The following season he won the prestigious Memorial Tournament in a three-way playoff. He added two more victories that year, capturing backto-back Fed Ex Cup playoff tournaments in New York and Boston. He ended his sophomore campaign third in Fed Ex Cup points. Bryson was a captain’s selection for the losing Ryder Cup team in Paris in 2018. He continued his winning ways during the 201819 wraparound season by winning that November in Las Vegas. The following January he captured the prestigious Dubai Desert Classic, a big-money event on the European Tour. He was a member of the winning Presidents Cup team this past December in Australia.
DeChambeau started on an active strength program last September and added 20 pounds to his physique. When the PGA Tour closed down because of the pandemic in March of 2020, he continued with his program and put on another 20 pounds of bulk. He contends that during the course of the last nine months he has gained 40 total pounds and 25 pounds of muscle. His daily food program entails 4,000-plus calories per day.
The end result has been clear. DeChambeau looks nothing like he used to. He has gained two shirt sizes. He could remind you more of a power-hitting third baseman than a professional golfer. He is extremely large in the chest area and in his upper arms. He has been able to surpass Dustin Johnson in driving distance as well as ball speed. Johnson was No. 1 on tour with his the ball coming off his clubface at 177 miles per hour. DeChambeau has topped that at 185 mph. He has added 25 yards of distance off the tee, which now puts him ahead of Johnson and Cameron Champ in the bomber category.
The thing about power in golf is that if you can control it, then the game becomes incrementally easier., much in the way that Tiger Woods beat up Augusta National at the 1997 Masters, hitting wedges into par-5s. DeChambeau has been able to do the same since the tour returned to action. In his first seven tourneys back, he has placed no worse than a tie for eighth. In Detroit he had a total of 19 drives that topped out at more than 350 yards. He was ahead of the secondlongest driver last week by an average of 24 yards.
So only time will tell whether the mad scientist of the PGA Tour, Bryson DeChambeau, has found the winning formula. Bobby Jones, Sam Snead, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods were the big bombers of their era. Maybe DeChambeau will find success, especially in majors, like the aforementioned golfers did. Then again, maybe the excessive change to his body will turn him into the next David Duval. And will this all work at Harding Park for the PGA? Stay tuned.