Most Impactful Golfers this Decade: Who Joins Tiger Woods?
Bryson DeChambeau
Ok, I’m coming in hot here. I can feel the eye rolls from across the internet. Hear me out.
Until Professor DeChambeau came along, no one challenged the accepted notion that golf clubs should be staggered in length. It wasn’t even a topic of discussion because there simply wasn’t much of a counter-argument to be made.
Today, there is a major manufacturer – Cobra – selling single-length irons and hybrids. This doesn’t happen without DeChambeau. While he didn’t invent the idea, he is responsible for bringing it to the masses.
How often is an entirely new category of irons invented? Answer: every couple of centuries.
Will DeChambeau’s 37.5-inch irons with a matching lie and bounce angles be the future of golf? Who knows. But it’s the wildest equipment invention since the Big Bertha debuted 30 years ago.
And his clubs are just the beginning of his wild approach to the game. He uses oversized grips, a Moe Normanesque swing, meteorological reports, and prodigy-level math skills to breakdown every aspect of the game.
He was once admonished for using a compass during a tournament. A compass! I know neither what a compass can do to help a golfer, nor why it is illegal for a golfer to know which direction they are facing.
Such is the enigma of DeChambeau.
Bryson has also unintentionally brought the problem of slow play to the latest discussions of rule changes.
Bryson is slow. Not in the “Are we there yet, Dad?” impatience of a child, but rather in the geological “This glacier has moved 50 feet in the last 2,000 years,” kind-of-slow.
He’s really good at making mathematical calculations on the course. He’s just not very quick about it. More than any other player, DeChambeau has the PGA considering a shot clock.
He’s also driving big stars like Brooks Koepka crazy. That gets the PGA’s attention.
Bryson has yet to win a Major, but most believe that is a matter of time for a guy who’s so dialed into every aspect of his game. He’s won an NCAA title, a US Amateur title, and several times on Tour. A Major is coming, believe it.
When golf historians look back at the 2010s, I guarantee Bryson DeChambeau will be one of the guys they look at and say, “He didn’t win the most, but he influenced the game in a way no one could have predicted.”