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On the Beat


B


Bryson DeChambeau: The Most Interesting Man in Golf


ryson DeChambeau—born in Modesto, graduate of Clovis East High School—is a great golfer but, more uncommonly,


a deeply interesting one. His accom- plishments alone are noteworthy, as DeChambeau recently became just the fifth player to win the NCAA individual championship and U.S. Amateur in the same year. Nicklaus, Woods, Mickelson—any of these names ring a bell? These three all-time talents can also claim the NCAA-Amateur double-dip. The other player in this exclusive fraternity is Ryan Moore, a four-time PGA Tour winner with lifetime earnings of more than $21 million. So that would appear to be the worst- case scenario for DeChambeau going forward.


But what DeChambeau is doing is not as fascinating as how he’s going about it, and the old-school Hogan cap he wears is just the beginning. Instead of the usual cupcake major favored by college jocks, the 2011 Junior Tour of Northern California Player of the Year chose to study physics at SMU, which is of a piece with his very analytical approach to golf. A precocious child who dis- played a mastery of algebra at age 6, DeChambeau was 15 when his instructor Mike Schy laid on him Homer Kelly’s dense, cultish tome “The Golfing Machine.” It was chock full of the kind of data that a scien- tific mind like DeChambeau craved, including ruminations on the 24 basic components of the swing, each with


10 / NCGA.ORG / FALL 2015


144 component variations. “After a couple of years of guidance from Mike, we came up with a single-plane swing from The Golfing Machine that’s called a ‘zero shifting motion’ more technically,” DeChambeau recently told Golf Digest. “I picked a cer- tain specific set of variations for my components and made my golf swing what it is today.” What makes DeChambeau so unusual is that he has combined art with science. At the Amateur he was asked when he played his best and instead of bringing up Kelly’s esoteric teachings he offered a simple thought: “It’s when I’m in a rhythm.” He added, “Most people think that I’m so technical that I don’t have a feel aspect or a rhythm aspect of it, but it’s just the opposite. I need momentum and rhythm to be that artist.” DeChambeau has so many


quirks it would surprise no one if some day he slices off his ear with a 1-iron. A prime example is his obsession and testing of new golf balls. “Not every golf ball is perfectly manufactured, so the center of gravity will actually be off center,” he says. “And there’s usually four out of every dozen that I won’t play.” When it comes to his swing, DeChambeau certainly does it his own way. At address, his arms are almost perfectly in line with the shaft, unlike how virtually every other top player lets his arms dangle from the shoulders. The grip of the club is mostly in his palms, anathema to traditional teaching that ordains the


butt of the club should ride in the fin- gers. Hogan biographer Curt Sampson recently wrote this about DeChambeau: “The right elbow rises as his club goes back, apostasy for those who teach and deify Ben Hogan, which is almost everyone on the lesson tee.” All of these idiosyncratic moves


power a set of clubs that have become the talk of the golf world. DeChambeau’s irons are all 37.5" long, the length of a typical 7-iron. Custom- made by Edel Golf, they feature non- standard head weights, and the shaft weight and flex change throughout the set. The lofts are tweaked from standard to provide distinct distance gaps: the long-irons start with five-degree spac- ing, the middle irons utilize 4-degree gaps and then the wedges go back to 5-degree increments. Brad Faxon, the eight-time Tour winner, spent a week studying DeChambeau as a TV analyst at the Amateur. “I think this kid might revolutionize the game,” says Faxon. “This could be the next big thing in equipment. We’ve pretty much maxed out what can be done with clubheads and balls. But for amateurs who struggle


PHOTO: USGA


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