At the heart of the call was a question DeChambeau was hoping to answer: What was the standard deviation from the rough? As Rehberg put it, “the standard deviation from the rough is basically the spray. Most players say left and right, long and short, but it’s really the standard deviation of what the ball is doing. Bryson understands that better anybody in the game.”DeChambeau already knew the rough was set up to penalize wayward shots, but if he could put a number on how the ball would react and amount of spin that would be lost on, say, a flier lie from certain distances, it would allow him to create a blueprint for the club(s) he could hit from specific yardages. With one of the fastest club-head speeds on Tour, DeChambeau figured he could generate sufficient spin, and a playable ball flight, from the rough to score around the course — even if he wasn’t finding the fairway with a nuked drive.
“If he normally generates 10,000 RPMs with a pitching wedge from a clean lie and knows a flier will knock the spin down to 7,000 RPMs, he’s able to calculate how much longer he’ll hit it in that situation. A lot of players are just guessing when they get a flier. The testing we conducted was all about helping him build those numbers for the clubs he figured he’d use often on approach shots — 8-iron, 9-iron, pitching wedge.
This is where his casino analogy applies. He puts in the work to create these narrow edges over the others guys, and it quite obviously works, at least when combined with near-200 m.p.h. initial ball speed.
Shane Ryan, in contrast, comes at the phenomenon from a completely different angle, to wit:
For a moment, let’s forget the specifics. Let’s forget the weight and distance gain, the muscle activation fitness regimen, the protein shakes, the single iron length, the putting lasers, and a thousand other things that fall under the umbrella of “science.” Forget it all and think broadly. Weneed some distance to understand Bryson DeChambeau’s win at the U.S. Open—the most consequential result for golf since Tiger Woods won the Masters in 1997—and to internalize the only conclusion that really matters: On an intellectual level, nobody else is trying hard enough.If that sounds like an insult to a group of professionals who have dedicated their lives to becoming elite practitioners of the sport, so be it. DeChambeau is putting them to shame simply because he has the courage not just to seek out innovative ideas, but to pursue them with monomaniacal energy. His commitment is so rigorous, so fanatical, that everyone else comes off looking like a dilettante.This makes people uncomfortable, fans and players alike, but the ultimate legacy of his astonishing win at Winged Foot—a course that was supposed to be the antithesis to and kryptonite for the DeChambeau Style—is that we can no longer dismiss him as a pretentious pseudoscientist. That comfort is gone, and now we reckon with a reality that forces from the mouths of the doubters the three most painful words imaginable.
He was right.
Shane draws a comparison to Tiger's 1997 Masters coming out party, to which I see both the similarities but also obvious differences. Here's Shane's road map:
What will the DeChambeau Effect look like? In 15 years, will we watch a new generation of hulked-up bombers chain-guzzle protein shakes, pecs bursting out of their golf shirts, each iron as long as the next, as they analyze complex topographical charts and an assistant clocks the speed of their putts?The answer is, probably yes. DeChambeau is so full of good ideas that some of them are going to trickle down, particularly if he keeps winning. Whatever Chris Como, his coach, is doing, other coaches will do. Muscle activation technique, which has been a staple in the NFL for years, will become widespread in golf. Barring any major rules change, power will reign even more completely than it did before, and player physiques will reflect it. All of DeChambeau’s good ideas will be copied.
For sure, though those caveats are worth noting. When Tiger burst onto the scene in 1996-97, he came with this lean, flexible body that seemed perfect for the game. His swing would never be characterized as effortless or silky smooth like a Fred Couples, but it was far more pleasing to the eye than Bryson's. Add that to potential health concerns from the added muscle mass and a prickly, overly-entitled personality (Bryson, it's always special when you speak of your brand), it will indeed be interesting to see how this evolves.
But, as Shane makes clear, what Bryson is doing seems to be working:
The nice thing about athletic innovation is that the results are measurable. DeChambeau’s physical transformation attracts the bulk of public attention, and puts the focus on his drives (which are spectacular). Did it work? Well, in the 2020 season, he finished first in strokes gained/off the tee. That’s compared to 24th, 12th, and 35th in prior years. It worked.His putting game deserves its own feature-length article, but you can get a small taste from this quote: “If I hit a 40-footer and it says 10.1 miles per hour on the device, I know that I’ve executed it correctly. And if I see the ball go two feet past that 40-foot mark, I know it’s perfect.” So it involves radar and arm locks and lasers and men holding towels when necessary. Did it work? In 2020, he finished 10th in sg/putting, compared to 28th, 32nd and a woeful 145th in prior years. It worked.
The weakest part of his game has obviously been his wedge game, attributed to longer shafts in his single length sets. But, as I've noted previously, it's not like he won't address that weakness:
Today, his approach game is relatively poor (119th by the strokes gained metric last season), but you can bet he’ll find a way to improve that, too, and if his performance from the thick grass at Winged Foot is any indication, he’s on his way. “I don’t think they can set it up for him, to be honest,” Louis Oosthuizen said on Sunday, “he’s so strong out of the rough.” In fact, DeChambeau was first in the entire field at Winged Foot in strokes gained/approach, accumulating a massive 7.551 strokes in four rounds. It’s working.
Shane uses Rory McIlroy, specifically his deer-in-the-headlights comments after the Open, as framing device, and it's an apt one. To me, Bryson is the anti-Rory, with a relentless drive to improve that will inevitably leave the Rory's in his wake. Rory is built for comfort, witness the childhood best friend on the bag, whereas Bryson is built for speed, as evidenced by his being the last guy on the range Saturday night in Mamaroneck.
In his blogging of the Jonathan Wall item above, Shack had this closing comment:
Again, tip your cap to him. But is this where maybe we begin asking if things are maybe not headed in the right direction?
Well, there is that....Developing, as the kids are wont to say.
Golf's Moment - The National Golf Foundation has released this analysis of recent trends in our game, some of which we've discussed previously. Here's a taste:
The August rounds played report shows that rounds were up 20.6% year-over-year.
That sets another record for the biggest increase in a peak season month since Golf Datatech began tracking rounds two decades ago. We’re talking about a lift of roughly 10 million rounds in August alone, which comes on top of a burst of 17 million added rounds in June and July compared to a year ago. It’s been quite a summer for golf.
Which graphically looks thusly:
But see if you find this comment oddly disconcerting:
But nothing about the past few months seems structurally different for golf, whether with the product itself, the service that supports it, or the overall user experience … unless you count extended tee time intervals, which for a time seemed to produce faster, smoother and more enjoyable rounds. Either way, we weren’t suddenly marketing ourselves differently, onboarding new players differently, or managing customer relationships differently. (In fact, remote check-in procedures may have made it more impersonal.)
Excuse me, but are you folks aware that we've been locked down since March, virtually all other forms of entertainment and/or amusement have been shut down and no one is allowed to go to their office? I mean, you should be, as I'm pretty sure it's made the newspapers...
So, yes, nothing changed structurally within our game... It's just that the rest of the world shut down and stayed closed. Is that your strategy for the future?
When Bad Things Happen... - Tony Finau has always seemed a good guy, but of course this story is troubling:
Utah professional golfer Tony Finau is being sued by Molonai Hola, a former business associate, for more than $16 million.
The suit, which was filed last week in 3rd District Court, claims Hola paid Finau and his family’s expenses for several years with the agreement of being paid back, but was never compensated.
Hola became acquainted with the Finau family around 1997, and as the owner of Icon Sports began financing expenses for Tony and his younger brother Gipper, according to the suit.
Also named in the lawsuit are Finau’s brother, Gipper, his father, Gary, his agent Christopher Armstrong and the Wasserman Media Group.
Gipper? I guess they're Ronald Reagan fans....
Now the math is a little hard to follow:
The suit claims Hola paid for the Finau family’s mortgage payments, medical insurance, a new car as well as golf-related travel expenses for Tony and Gipper, including living expenses for the Finau family to reside in Florida for approximately a year while they received lessons from renowned golf instructor David Leadbetter.
Later, Hola helped form the Finau Corporation to help promote the young golfers and was designated as the corporation’s registered agent.
The expenses, according to the suit, added up to $592,371.37 over several years.
The suit asks for that amount, plus interest and for compensatory damages of “at least $16 million, plus interest,” which the suit claims represents approximately 20% of the two golfers’ career earnings to date. Hola claims he was promised 20% of the Finaus’ future professional earnings.
Perhaps not so much the math, as that the agreement to reimburse seems to have morphed into an agreement to share 20% of the brother's winnings. I see no issues with the lawsuit, as long as that agreement regarding the 20% interest was properly documented.
I know nothing, but I smell extortion.... Stay tuned.
Quick Hits - I need to start my exit segue, so I'll tee up some reading for those that crave more. First, I suspect this is a competitive category, but we have a new candidate for the best golfer of whom you've never heard:
To reduce his flesh-and-blood life into pitch-meeting shorthand, you could say that Papwa Sewgolum was the Charlie Sifford of South African golf. It’s an inadequate analogy, of course, just as the few words typed here get you barely past the starting line of Papwa’s life. What I know for sure is that I have done an inadequate job, over the years, exploring the lives of Black and brown golfers, female golfers, handicapped golfers — golfers who moved mountains to get to the first tee. This space, both today and tomorrow, will try to address that. For starters, here’s Papwa.He was born in 1928, nine months before Arnold Palmer, near Durban, the large coastal South African city with an enormous population of Indians, many of whom worked in sugar fields. To say that Indian South Africans in Papwa’s time and place were treated as second-class citizens is a grotesque understatement. Papwa, who could not read, grew up poor and came to the game as a caddie. In his 30s, he won the Dutch Open three times—in 1959, ’60 and ’64. (Seve Ballesteros and Bernhard Langer won it three times each, too.) Papwa’s wins were proof of what he could do, if his skin color did not disqualify him, if he had the money to get to a tournament, if his government would grant him a passport. He played in six British Opens — he finished 13th in 1963 — but no other majors.
Good stuff. More like this, please.
A little Masters tease? Don't panic, it won't look like this in August:
Here's the skinny:
But the shot, which made the rounds on social media, is simply the famous golf course’s traditional September look. It’s unnerving, for certain, but not out of the ordinary.
Overseeding is set to begin soon, if it hasn’t already. The grasses take less than a week to surface after the original seed is spread.
As you might expect, summers are steamy in Augusta, with a humid subtropical climate taking its toll on the famed golf course. Although the Bermuda grass can handle the heat, it starts to turn brown in the fall when cooler temperatures set in. For example, low temperatures are expected to get down into the 40s by week’s end.
Around this time each year, Augusta National crews start to put down a rye grass, which returns the course to green — even if it’s not as lavish as in spring. The course is typically closed from May until October while this process plays out.
It’s a different experience, but still a good one, according to those who have walked the fairways in fall.
OK, I guess I'll watch. Alan Shipnuck has a suggestion for CBS:
This is glorious. https://t.co/Kv53CRUpk4
— Alan Shipnuck (@AlanShipnuck) September 27, 2020
OK, but I'd rather have a blimp and on-course reporters.
Are they twinned? If not, perhaps they should be...
Pinehurst, St. Andrews connected by more than just history
Give or take a DeChambeau drive, it’s about 3,750 miles from the town of St. Andrews in the Kingdom of Fife to the village of Pinehurst in the sandhills of North Carolina. But what distance separates, golf connects.
St. Andrews and Pinehurst are often mentioned in the same breath as homes of the game in the Old World and the New, respectively, not least because both places don’t just embrace golf but rather seem to have grown organically around its finest canvases.
Pinehurst has long been called the St. Andrews of the new world, a comparison that I find a stretch. It's a completely wonderful place, don't get me wrong, and quite the golfy town. It's just never had any formal role in the game, though that may be changing with the latest news from the USGA.
But I very much agree with Eamon's comments here about No. 2:
When I first visited No. 2 about 15 years ago, much of its strategic charm was buried beneathsod. Its fairways were wall-to-wall grass, generous enough to land an aircraft without disturbing a pine cone. What little it demanded of players off the tee, it made up for around the famously crowned greens, where someone with a stonemason’s touch might ping-pong hither and yon for some time. To wit: A friend once shot an ignominious round of 121 at No. 2. With one ball!A long season of change at Pinehurst began a decade ago, when No. 2 was restored by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. The duo ripped out 35 acres of turf, leaving native areas dotted with grass and scrub that not only returned long-lost playing angles to the old masterpiece but gave it back real character and authenticity too. You’ll still find almost every wayward shot out there – trust me on this – but No. 2’s demands off the tee are considerably more thoughtful and exacting than they once were.
I had exactly the same reaction. On my first visit, from the tee one saw only a sea of green, unable to distinguish fairway from rough. Now the course reflects its natural environment, and the lines of play are obvious and visually pleasing.
Of course, according to this guy, lost balls will be a thing of the past:
Sick of losing golf balls? Here are 5 tips to never lose one again
I'm glad he resisted the temptation to over-promise...
As longtime readers know, I'm not one that thinks professional athletes need to be social justice warriors. That said, an item like this seems, at best, curious:
Ladies European Tour announces first female pro golf events in Saudi Arabia worth $1.5M
I'm old enough to remember when the men were criticized for playing in Saudi Arabia... Hard to imagine how anyone can criticize those without cervixes doing business in Saudi... Well, you can finish my thought.
I'll release you here and see you further down the line.
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