Can The Masters Take a Punch?

The most exciting aspect of The Masters in 2020 is that we really don’t know what to expect. It might be a tournament that changes the game forever.

The weather will be roughly ten degrees cooler at this year’s Masters. The foliage will look less deep green and more multi-hued. And, of course, the patrons will be missing.

There will be no roars tumbling through the Georgia pines. Only the rustling of leaves and pine straw will accompany Jim Nance’s sotto voce.

It will be a quiet Masters in 2020. But the outcome may yet echo through the pines for years to come.

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This is the year we find out if Augusta National can still be a stiff test of golf or if the modern game is ready to steamroll the course into quaintness.

Augusta National has always been a thinkers course. Bombers, despite the lack of rough, rarely fared well there. Approach angles, lag putting, positioning off the tee – those were the elements of a Champions game.

This year, Bryson DeChambeau is going to climb in the ring and try to knock Augusta out by throwing nothing but haymakers.

It might have been a laughable strategy if Big Bry hadn’t just taken his sledgehammer drives to Winged Foot and walked away a Major Champion.

Everything we thought we knew about how to succeed at Winged Foot applies to Augusta. They are both Golden Era gems – heavily treed, slick greens, and demanding of attention on every shot. Both places can turn a birdie attempt into a double bogey if an approach shot misses the green by a yard. Imprecision never played well at either.

Then Bryson came and blew the whole thing up. He did everything we were told not to do at Winged Foot. He fought the course, he didn’t dance with it. And he won going away, six shots clear and the only golfer under par.

Now comes The Masters.

Low scores are not rare at Augusta. A final score in the mid to high teens under par is likely. In other words, if you can shoot three to four under each day, you have a great chance at a Green Jacket. Just five years ago, Jordan Speith set the record at -18 en route to his victory. Augusta is there for the taking.

But what Bryson plans is something wholly different.

Typically, The Masters broadcast is filled with comments about which holes can be attacked and which ones par is a great score. Numbers 1, 5, 10, and 11 all typically play over par for the week. Every player, right now, would take par on each of these holes all four days.

Not Bryson. He’s having none of it. Every hole is a birdie hole in his mind.

At Winged Foot, I thought DeChambeau’s approach was laughable. It was exactly the type of layout I thought would devour a bomber. I wasn’t alone in that thinking and I’m not alone in having egg on my face for it.

There are lots of guys who can hit it long. That’s not what separates DeChambeau from other contenders like Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Jon Rahm, and a host of less accomplished competitors who can send it deep.

The difference is that those other guys hit it long by nature and try to hit it to a certain spot. When they are on, they are each hard to beat. Bryson simply hits it as long as he can and lets the cards fall where they may.

He doesn’t care if he’s 15 yards off-target on a drive. As long as he’s hitting wedge and not 8-iron in, it doesn’t make a lick of difference to him.

I can’t emphasize what a different approach that is in professional golf. “Fairways and Greens” is the mantra on Tour. It’s been that way for 100+ years in golf. And while it’s still a winning formula most of the time, Bryson is thumbing his nose at it.

His approach is “Bombs and Wedges”. That’s typically a plane ticket home on Friday night.

Know this. Every player in the field this week is thinking about position off the tee, landing zones on greens, and bailout areas – except Bryson DeChambeau.

We are about to find out if Bryson has unlocked some game-altering strategy that could change the game and course architecture for the foreseeable future or if he is just a mad bomber who caught lightning in a bottle at Winged Foot.

And honestly, I don’t know what will happen. He could run away with The Masters or he could implode and not make the cut. Thomas, Johnson, Koepka, and Rahm – I feel certain they will be around for the weekend. It seems strange that I can’t say the same about the newly minted US Open Champion.

But that’s why I’ll be glued to my TV all weekend. Maybe Woods or Mickelson can make a run. Maybe Wolff, Hovland, or Morikawa can surprise us. Perhaps it will all go according to plan and Brooks, Rahm, Dustin, and Justin will battle down the stretch.

And maybe, just maybe, Bryson DeChambeau will alter the future of the game by landing 350-yard uppercut after uppercut to Augusta’s azalea-wreathed head. If that happens, the roars and murmurs will be heard well beyond that most beautiful patch of Georgia woods.

If Bryson takes down Augusta, he might be changing the game forever.