Physics Reigns As DeChambeau Shocks Golf with U.S. Open Victory

Bryson DeChambeau beat the doubters and a tough U.S. Open golf course by winning at Winged Foot. He blinded them with science.

To make matters more emphatic, he did it with an under-par score and by hitting far fewer fairways than anyone thought possible for a winner.

Bryson DeChambeau insisted he was on the right path with his scientific approach, one that would allow him to hit farther and win more often. He just proved it to everybody on Sunday by winning the U.S. Open.

As he said in the press conference after his victory, “So many times I relied on science, and it worked every single time.”

Earlier in the year, when he went into the weight room and started eating steaks and pounding protein shakes, people initially thought he was crazy. Then, after the pandemic lock down, he came back even bigger and stronger than he had ever been. He was also able to hit more like a long drive candidate than a PGA Tour player. Golfers on tour really thought he had lost his mind.

But DeChambeau was a man with a plan. He had confidence in his method because it was based on math and physics, and they don’t lie.

The same way that knowing the distance to the pin gives a PGA Tour golfer confidence that he’s picking the right club, math and physics have given DeChambeau confidence that his program is right, too.

He knows — and really every golfer knows this, too — if he can hit a longer drive than anyone else, he will have a shorter shot to the green and will, therefore, have a better chance to get the ball closer to the hole because it’s easier to hit closer with a wedge than it is with a 4-iron. So, he wanted to maximize his length and maximize his chance to get his shots closer to the hole.

Those are the only reasons he has done what he has done. He’s trying to maximize what he can do on the golf course.

DeChambeau also used science to test his analyze and improve his putting on the practice green at the U.S. Open. He believes that helped his speed on the actual greens.

“My putting was immaculate today. My speed control, incredible,” he said. “You see me out there on the greens with the device trying to control my speed.”

He said that using his measuring device gave him confidence that he could take the putter back a certain length and have the ball travel a certain distance.

“It’s just something that allows me and gives me comfort to know that on this green, or these speeds of greens, you know, it’s going to be repeatable,” he added.

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Next, he’s going to try for a 48-inch driver which he hopes to have ready for the Masters in November. And he’s going to work with Cobra on some driver head designs so that, at higher speeds, he can gain some control.

“Length is going to be a big advantage there ( Augusta National),” he said. “I’m going to try and prepare by testing a couple things with the driver. I mean, by that, it’s 48 inches, and I’ll also do something with the face to account for the new speed that I’m going at.”

Even at the same swing speed, going to the 48-inch driver is increasing the arc of his swing, which should increase his swing speed even if he kept the same swing he has now. It’s the reason the long drive competitors use 52-inch drivers. But the trade-off has always been accuracy. The question will be, can he overcome that.

There are not many pro golfers who are physics majors or math majors, but plenty of you have actually heard of the basic principles behind DeChambeau’s new program. They are Newton’s Laws of Motion. And we’re not talking Fig Newtons. We’re talking Isaac Newton.

The laws are:

1. A body in motion tends to stay in motion, and a body at rest tends to stay at rest.

2. Force equals mass times acceleration.

3. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Newton created them in the 1600s, so they’ve been with us for centuries and are the basis for all kinds of higher-level science that came later. In particular, the second law, force equals mass times acceleration, is why DeChambeau knew that having a bigger mass (weighing more) and a faster swing speed ( acceleration) would increase his distance (more force on the golf ball).

Plenty of other people know this also, but most of them are not world class golfers. DeChambeau knows both golf and the science behind golf. And he was able to make his clubs and his body perform successfully, successfully enough to be this years U.S. Open champ.

He blinded everyone with science.

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