Once Golf's Biggest Attraction, Bryson DeChambeau Is Playing Hurt and Mostly An Afterthought Entering This Masters
AUGUSTA, Ga.— Enjoy this week’s total eclipse at the Masters Tournament.
What, some kind of rare solar event? An update on the state of singer Bonnie Tyler’s heart? (“Turn around,” check Golden Oldies for details.)
No, this is another Tiger Woods Total Eclipse, an event that happens every so often when a wave of TigerMania washes across golf in the wake of the game’s greatest player. This week, he’s attempting a semi-heroic comeback from a car crash a year ago. Semi-heroic? Yeah, it was a one-car accident. It was all on him. But that’s not important. The fact that he is back so quickly, or even back at all, is center stage at Augusta National Golf Club.
Woods has thus far blotted out the sun on all things Masters. (Like the remarkable fact that he’s playing is reigning PGA Championship winner Phil Mickelson isn’t.) It’s happened before and if we’re lucky, it will happen again. Every so often, we get an all-Tiger, all-the-time Masters. Like 1997, for example, or 2019, his unexpected fifth green-jacketed win. This is one of those weeks.
Which means Bryson DeChambeau, who turned into golf’s top attraction last year, is just another brick in the wall. (See Golden Oldies: Last name Floyd, first name Pink.) Worse, DeChambeau suddenly seems to be in a precarious spot. He is playing hurt, usually a bad idea in golf because it leads to swing alterations that can become permanent. Or it leads to a long-lasting or permanent injury.
It all stems from one thing, to rephrase football legend Vince Lombardi’s line and apply it to golf: Distance isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.
DeChambeau is the most innovative player in modern golf. Tiger Woods took fitness to the next level. DeChambeau took science and power to the next level. There are his irons, which are all the same length. Nobody else does that. Then he power-lifted his way into being a muscle-man, at one point adding 40 pounds (much of which he has taken off since) and refining his swing to maximize his driving distance.
His new approach paid off at first. He won the U.S. Open at Winged Foot by turning it into a pitch-and-putt course. What about the Open rough? He had the strength to play out of it, and it helped that he pounded drives so far that he usually had only a short-iron shot left.
The whole thing turned into a freak show that the public devoured. Everyone loves the long ball and every golfer fantasized about hitting a drive as far as DeChambeau. Old-timers remember when 300 yards was the demarcation line of a big hitter. Then it moved to 330. DeChambeau has pushed it to 350 and more. He is Happy Gilmore come to life, minus the hockey jersey, the alligator, Bob Barker and the tap-tap-tap-a-roonie.
Winning the Open the way he did, by making Winged Foot look puny, was validation for DeChambeau’s approach. Longer is better, it appeared. DeChambeau kept pushing the envelope. He affected other players with his power. Rory McIlroy, a big-hitter himself, last year admitted one reason for his slump was that he was trying to keep up with DeChambeau off the tee and not feel as if he was at a competitive disadvantage. You know, the way everyone in golf felt after Woods came out on tour, all muscled up, demolished Augusta National in 1997 and spent the next five years blowing tee shots 30 yards or more past everyone else as he practically ran the table.
Well, DeChambeau, a former U.S. Amateur champion who played college golf at Southern Methodist University and took to wearing a Ben Hogan-style cap in honor of late SMU alum Payne Stewart, seemed to get addicted to distance. He has one title since that U.S. Open, the 2021 Arnold Palmer Invitational. He draws big crowds and gets daily media attention when he plays. He gets invited to the Silly Season events like The Match and shows off his absurd power and his dense calculations.
But the winning is stuck on pause. He has played well at times, notably losing a thrilling six-hole playoff to Patrick Cantlay at last year’s BMW Championship. He is playing this week against doctor’s orders. He’s got a fractured hamate bone in his wrist that isn’t totally healed and he’s got a hip injury. “I’m probably around 80 percent right now,” DeChambeau said. “I can’t go all out. I can’t do speed training sessions. I can’t practice for excessive hours to figure stuff out.”
On the range Wednesday morning, DeChambeau tinkered with his takeaway and other parts of his swing. It this wasn’t the Masters, he probably wouldn’t be playing. Maybe he shouldn’t be playing. But he is. He looked like a scientist performing an experiment in search of a swing—not how you want to feel the day before the Masters begins.
He suffered a minor tear in his left hip labrum two years ago while doing some speed training—that is, working on increasing his ballspeed. Clubhead speed was the old measurement of power. Now it’s the speed of the ball coming off the face that matters.
DeChambeau also hit so many golf balls in practice that he hurt his wrist and during last year’s U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, where he was in contention, he felt something pop in his hand. He was able to play on but his wrist didn’t feel good.
Then at this year’s Saudi International tournament in Saudi Arabia, DeChambeau re-injured himself while playing … Ping-Pong?
“I was playing against Sergio Garcia and Joaquin Niemann,” DeChambeau said. “We were on some marble floors they just wiped. Me not paying attention, I Charlie Brown-ed myself and went horizontal and hit my left hip and hand at the same time ant that really took me out. That’s when it got to the point where I couldn’t even grip the golf club.”
DeChambeau took six weeks off, competed in the World Match Play Championship two weeks ago and was winless in three matches, and now, here he is, facing another challenge. This week, it’s figuring out a way to play well at 80 percent.
“Well, at 80 percent I’m still around 190 mph ball speed,” he said. Notice how it’s always about ball speed? Does a baseball pitcher walk three straight batters and say, Yeah, but I’m throwing it 99 mph?
DeChambeau has worked hard on his short game with his coach, Chris Como.
“From a chipping and a putting perspective, I’m really close to having my A Game there,” DeChambeau said. “It’s been unraveling this knot I’ve had in my game for the past four years. We’re finally moving in a positive direction for me to be able to win regularly again like I did in 2018.”
His speed work is impressive, no doubt about it. But ever since he took part in last fall’s World Long Drive Championship, he seems more focused on that than on tournament golf. Maybe that’s an outsider’s perception but he was treated like a king at that event because he brought some glamour to a specialist’s event that usually gets little attention. He finished seventh, which was very good, and had a longest drive of 406 yards. He took it very seriously and was totally into the competition.
As for tournament golf, yes, he talks about winning more majors and getting to No. 1 in the world but he’s also talking about competing in an upcoming Long Drive event shortly after the Masters, despite his injuries.
“It may not be the smartest thing,” DeChambeau admitted. “I’m reconsidering. But I’ll definitely be there for support for sure. As of right now, I’m taking it easy, just making sure I’m healing properly. It’s a day-by-day thing.
“The doctors recommended that I don’t come back for a while. They’re like, ‘You really should let it heal.’ I’m like, ‘This (the Masters) only comes around once a year and I’ve got to give this a go.’ You know me, I always like going against the grain a bit.”
DeChambeau was The Show on the PGA Tour last year. The Show will go on this week. It’s a questionable decision, but this much is certain—it will be a sideshow at Augusta National at least until the back nine on Sunday.
One way or another (See Golden Oldies: Blondie), this is Tiger’s Masters. DeChambeau will join the rest of the field in his shadow.
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