An incorrigible obsessive, Bryson DeChambeau has acquired enough eccentric tics to fill an entire journal of psychology. Take this year’s Masters, where his habit between rounds is to pound so many balls on the driving range that he loses count, desperately seeking an edge imperceptible to everybody but him.
At one point, he could be seen practising a violent uppercut motion, trying to replicate the heavy topspin move in table tennis. “I can go through 100 different swing thoughts in a week – there’s a lot going on,” he said, tapping at his head. “You wouldn’t want to be in there.”
It is a degree of masochism bordering on certifiable. And yet golf’s mad scientist is reaping the reward of such dedication, even if his rounds of 69 and 68 might not fully satisfy the man still known for his infamous description of Augusta as a “par-67”. DeChambeau is a compelling circus act, combining his love of geometry and coefficients of flag stick restitution with an otherworldly power. His average first-round driving distance of 340 yards was more than 15 yards superior to every other player, a statistic that appeared to overwhelm even him.
“Oh, wow,” he said, stunned. In his second, he reduced the fifth, a brutal right-to-left dog-leg and the hardest par-four on the front nine at 495 yards, to a drive and a nine-iron.
Not that DeChambeau’s game is rooted solely in freakish Popeye strength. The subtlety of his approach has evolved from the “bomb-and-gouge” philosophy that he adopted at Winged Foot in 2020, en route to the first of his two US Open triumphs. There, fortified by a daily diet of seven protein shakes, he could launch the ball so far that he did not even worry if it ended up tangled in deep rough, knowing he would seldom face more than a short pitch to any green. At 31, he is not so high on hubris any longer, accepting he needs to adapt to Augusta’s ever-changing nuances.
This explains his marathon range sessions: on one practice day, he hit an exhausting 393 balls, 146 more than anyone else here. “I’m a little different,” he smiled, with no little understatement. “Something’s not right, I guess. For me, all that matters is being able to execute the shot the way I want. If I don’t see it come out of a window with the right curvature, I’m going to continue to work until I figure it out and feel that my perception meets reality. I don’t stop.”
Naturally, a certain brashness remains. DeChambeau entered the Long Drive Championship in 2022 specifically to show off his bulked-up physique, reaching the final of the 100-man event by virtue of his preposterous 230mph ball speed, enabling him to propel one drive 406 yards. The essence of his magic, though, is that he connects this ...
