Bryson DeChambeau and the future of Golf

Bryson DeChambeau’s physical transformation tells us a lot about where the game of golf is headed. And none of it is good.

If there is one person who embodies big data on the PGA Tour, it’s Bryson DeChambeau. He is famously (or infamously) known for calculating the phases of the moon, tide charts, altitude, and relative humidity into reading every 4-foot putt.

Data runs our lives. We have smartphones, smart homes, and smart cars. Literally every minute of the day we are providing data to some big corporation through GPS, credit cards use, online activity, or even setting the temperature in our homes. Heck, even Amazon, Apple, and Facebook know what expletive I yelled when Tiger’s approach popped out of the hole at the Farmers Insurance this past weekend. Alexa, Siri, and Portal were all listening.

I anxiously await all the dog pooper-scooper ads on my Instagram feed.

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This season, the formerly athletic-looking Bryson DeChambeau has been replaced. It’s Bryson 2.0 … The Superhuman. Not super in that he’s consulting tectonic plate charts to determine fairway rollout, no, super in that he’s bigger than ever. The scientific calculations going on in his head may be the same, but it’s all housed in a new apocalypse-proof package.

According to most reports, DeChambeau added about 25 pounds of muscle in the off-season. It was a carefully managed transformation to drastically increase power. And like all things Bryson DeChambeau does, it was driven by data.

DeChambeau is always looking for an edge. He pioneered single-length irons, he leaves the pin in when putting, he carries a compass, he reads weather charts before teeing off. It’s tough to say if all this has made him demonstrably better on the course. He won three times on Tour in 2018 but secured only one victory in the 2019 season. Altogether, Bryson has won five times in five years. That’s good, but by no means dominating.

So after a lackluster 2019, Bryson DeChambeau decided he needed to put all that scientific brainpower in an upgraded chassis. There was really one thing driving this decision – Brooks Koepka.

Koepka is the prototype for the modern golfer. He’s tall, lean, muscular, and athletic. Gary Woodland, a former college basketball player and defending US Open champion also fits this mold. Both Koepka and Woodland play the game in the “Bomb and Gouge” style. And Bryson wants to join the crowd.

For purists, “Bomb and Gouge” is a virus ravaging the modern game of golf. Its tenets are simple enough – hit the driver as far as possible in an attempt to leave a short iron approach. Accuracy off the tee is not mandatory, only length matters; the rationale being that a wedge from the rough is better than a 7-iron from the fairway.

The issue is that this style of play – aided by space-age materials in balls and clubs – renders obsolete many of the finest courses in the world. A ball launched by Brooks Koepka laughs at fairway bunkers situated 270 yards down the fairway. It tips its cap as it cruises high above doglegs. It makes any hole less than 650 yards just long a par 4.

And it wins Major Championships. That’s the most important thing of all.

So Bryson DeChambeau has joined the ranks of prodigious drivers after a winter spent in the gym. Last year he ranked 34th in Driving Distance – this year he’s 8th. He’s picked up almost 10 yards. That’s about half a club closer on approaches. That’s a big deal. I expect that number to get even better as he grooves his swing in his new souped-up frame.

For the game of golf, finesse and shot-making are losing the race to raw power. DeChambeau and others who share his new approach of “Bomb and Gouge” are changing the sport in ways we can’t yet understand. I, for one, don’t like the direction it’s headed.

In the early 2000s, golf was ablaze with “Tiger-proofing”. Even the venerable Augusta made changes to accommodate the long hitters. I didn’t like it then, and I don’t like it now. Of course, Tiger is no longer bombing it past other players. Everyone is bombing it. In the process, the older courses built in the Golden Age of golf by men like Mackenzie, MacDonald, Raynor, Tillinghast, and others are becoming obsolete for Tour play.

That’s a shame. And a loss for the players and fans alike.

In the next five years, I expect the Tour to adopt equipment changes that limit performance in either the ball, the clubs, or both. If they don’t, there will be few courses that can contain the field.

Bethpage Black is almost 7,600 yards and plays to a par 70. It stands as the toughest course on Tour, though it doesn’t host an annual event. While it is a Tillinghast design, old Tillie never imagined it at its current dimensions. For the modern Tour, this is the new model in course architecture. Long holes, long rough, and long rounds. I’m not sure that’s an improvement.

One of the great thrills of golf is the ability to play many of the same courses on which the Pros compete. But honestly, it not the same course anymore. It’s just the same greens. The tee shots, approaches, hazard placements – they’re completely different for the amateur player on the same course.

That’s OK. It just means that you and I get to experience the old courses as they were intended to be played. We get to see them through the eyes of the titans of golf architecture. The Pros see all those hazards and doglegs as little more than quaint villages as spotted from a Lear jet.

I think that’s their loss more than ours.