Biomechanical approach
DeChambeau on winning course
SILVIS, Ill. – This weekend signals an early bench mark in Bryson DeChambeau’s budding career, as the 24-yearold will play for the first time as a defending champion in a PGA Tour tournament.
DeChambeau broke through in last year’s John Deere Classic, reeling off six birdies in his final nine holes to shoot a
65 and finish at 18 under par. He celebrated his first Tour win with tears of excitement and an emphatic fist pump.
“That’s something I’m still feeling out,” DeChambeau said Wednesday. “This is only my second day here since I’ve been back. I think as the tournament gets started, it’ll be the same.
“As of right now, it’s kind of hyped up a little bit, I guess if you want to say. A lot people say, ‘Oh, you’re the defending champ.’ Look, it’s a tournament I want to go out and play well in, and that’s all I have to think about. Not going to think, oh, I have to defend my title or anything like that.
“I am just going to go and execute every shot to the best of my ability.”
His profile has soared since. He clinched his second Tour win in the Memorial in early June, one of his seven
top-10 finishes this season. He is sixth in the FedExCup standings and has put himself in good position to make his first Ryder Cup team.
Just as headline-catching as DeChambeau’s play has been is his analytical, biomechanical approach to the game itself. The former physics major — who uses single-length irons, relies on vector putting and implements a singleplane swing — has made plenty of noise with his unorthodox methods.
Cameras caught DeChambeau using a drawing compass during the Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands three weeks ago. The USGA ruled last week that the compass is illegal.
DeChambeau addressed the decision Wednesday.
“I will say it’s unfortunate,” he said. “It’s just a reference tool. I talked to (USGA senior managing director) John Bodenhamer about it quite a bit, couple hours, and we had a great conversation. The USGA has been really responsive. We’ve had fantastic talks. I’m honestly looking forward to working with them on helping make the rules better, more clear. That was never my intention, to skirt by the rules or anything like that. It was just a device I thought had been used for a long time in different fields. It shouldn’t be an issue. It’s not a distancemeasuring device. It’s just a referencing tool.
“So they only didn’t think it was legal, and that’s fine. At the same point in time, there is a lot of different ways to go about referencing things. You know, like I could ice my finger or things like that. So they’re working on that to clarify the rules in that regard as well.”
DeChambeau said the compass ruling won’t deter his creativity in trying to maximize his resources, adding that he’s “trying to utilize every tool in my brain to be able to reference information and get information in a way that I can utilize it to the best my ability.”
He also said meeting with the USGA one-on-one about the issue was a “big step” in having “a personal relationship first off and be mutually beneficial.”