Bryson DeChambeau hopes luck will be on his side at Shriners

Bryson DeChambeau feels like he’s on top of his game right now, but even with all the numbers, he knows that he’ll need just a few lucky breaks to break through in Las Vegas this week.

In his four appearances at the Shriners Hospital for Children Open, Bryson DeChambeau has a 25% success rate. One victory, three losses. That’s pretty good for any golfer, but DeChambeau hopes to improve it somewhat with by winning this week. He thinks he’s ready.

“I felt like I should have won last week,” he said to media before the tournament.  While he might be accused of boasting, he backed it up with an explanation of what went wrong.

"“I had a couple things not go my way and couple unlucky breaks and wasn’t driving it my best,” he explained.  He feels the driving is now on target, and while he’s not sure you can make luck happen when you want it to, he does think it’s important for winning."

He said he had a conversation this week with a poker player about luck and how some people are lucky for long periods of time.  And as we all know, others can’t seem to catch a break.

Of course, DeChambeau being DeChambeau,  he then tried to quantify it.

“Over the course of your lifetime, it’s too difficult to even know what statistically should happen,” he said.

According to DeChambeau, that’s because a lifetime is short compared to the measurement of all things  that happen over all time and how often they can happen.

"“We could always be on the third standard deviation our whole entire life, which all that means is you can have really weird stuff happen to you your whole life,” he added."

Huh? What does Mr. Physics really mean by that?

Standard deviations are placements along a bell curve, like when your teacher said you would be graded on a curve. The teacher meant a bell curve because it’s shaped like a bell.  Starting at the middle of the curve, the first segment to the right and left of the center are the first standard deviations from the center.  In mathematics, that’s where about 68 percent of test scores will fall.  It’s approximately 34 percent of scores above the center and 34 percent below the center.

The second standard deviation includes an additional 13 percent beyond the 34 percent on either side of the middle. Added up, those two make up about 47+ percent above the middle and 47+ below the middle. Totaled up, that’s 95 + percent of the people taking the test.

The third standard deviation is nearly the extreme of the curve with just 2 percent of people on either end.  Those three standard deviations will include 99 + percent of  people taking the test.

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So, what DeChambeau is suggesting is that there may be some people who live their live that far out on a bell curve of possibilities and probabilities all the time. For instance, when Tiger Woods was at his height of his career, he had far more victories for the number of tournaments played than the rest of the people who played professional golf.

He was farther out on the bell curve than someone who has won once in a 20 year career.  Another example might be Tom Brady. He’s been on a team that wins substantially more often than other teams. Could he be in the third standard deviation of football players? Is that what hall of fame careers are? Is that where Olympic medalists live?

And yes, there’s a fourth standard deviation. That’s where the class valedictorian’s test scores are. Beyond the 99 percent. That’s Michael Phelps territory.

Now, in addition to messing with computing the possibility and probability of luck, DeChambeau did make a change that was concrete. He changed the shafts in his clubs to LAGP graphite.

At Safeway, he had the shaft in wedges and liked it so much that he went full bore.

"“It’s pretty cool to see the consistent ball spin rates in wet and dry conditions,” he noted about the shaft. “The ability to control the ball flight in the air is on a different level. It’s not moving as much. It’s more stable in flight.”"

The LAGP shafts have several layers of material, including carbon, boron, zylon, and then more carbon.  It’s a sandwich of high-tech materials designed, it appears, to improve performance and consistency through the bag. But they’re not cheap.  Some run nearly $500 per shaft.

DeChambeau, though, thinks it’s worth it.  Especially if it improves his accuracy or distance control.  Or, dare we say it, his luck.

“In order to win — we don’t hit it straight every time, so you are going to need luck,” he added.

In Las Vegas, he’s hoping to be very lucky one more time.