Hitting it long not a cure-all
Absolute power off the tee may corrupt absolutely
The Players Championship is in the record books, we’re just 19 days from the commencement of the 2021 Masters, and now is as good a time as any to review the arms race and the quest for clubhead speed on the PGA Tour. Bryson DeChambeau is the most talked about linkster on the PGA Tour and even those folks who are not true fans of the game willingly converse about his monster drives and bulked up body.
Yet as evidenced by the fact that the golfer who is ranked 101st in driving distance, Justin Thomas, is the new Players champion, success in professional golf obviously isn’t limited to just bashing the golf ball out of sight.
DeChambeau is the long ball knocker on the PGA Tour. He is ranked No. 1 and his average tee shot flies a prodigious 337 yards. He won the previous week’s tournament at Bay Hill by one stroke over Englishman Lee Westwood. Westwood is 47 years old and is ranked 148th in driving distance, a noticeable 41 yards behind Bryson. In the past we’ve marveled at how far DeChambeau hits a golf ball, and yet the reason he is the reigning United States Open champion as well as a winner at Bay Hill is because he has an outstanding short game and is a rock-solid putter. He also has forced some of his fellow competitors into rethinking their strategy.
One of those who watched the metamorphosis of Bryson DeChambeau was power golfer and four-time major champion Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland. Following DeChabeau’s impressive Open victory at Winged Foot, Rory decided the time was ripe to try to match Bryson’s power. Now mind you, Rory was the No. 2-ranked driver on tour, but he was almost 20 yards behind DeChambeau and he wanted to close the power gap. It was a buyer-beware moment.
The end result some six months later? Nothing short of a disaster for the defending Players champ. Following rounds of 79-75 and a missed cut, Rory spoke to the press on Friday afternoon. He said that as of “October of last year I was doing a little bit of speed training and started getting sucked into that stuff. My swing got flat, long, and too rotational. Obviously I added some speed and am hitting the ball longer, but what that did to my swing as a whole probably wasn’t a good thing, so I’m fighting to get back out of that. That’s what I’m frustrated with.”
Rory added two telling comments. His first thought was about DeChambeau and the Winged Foot setup for the U.S. Open. Rory stated that his initial impression was, “Whoa, if this is the way they’re going to set golf courses up in the future, it really helps.” However. he countered with the comment, “I just need to maybe rein it back a little bit.”