Bryson (61-58!) Says The Quiet Part Out Loud
DeChambeau suggests a new driver allows him to get away with misses and to practice less. The "Distance Insights" comment period remains open for another week.
Bryson DeChambeau posted 61-58 to close out the 54-hole LIV event at The Greenbrier. In birdieing 13 holes he reminded the world—at least the people who can watch an audibly offensive golf tournament apparently played above The Birdcage—of the player he was prior to the bacon beef-up.
Armed with fresh confidence via a new driver and guidance from instructor Dana Dahlquist, DeChambeau made a mockery of The Greenbrier’s Old White (TPC R.I.P.) course, posting a combined weekend total of 119 (-21) to win by six over Mito Pereira. In a less-Task Forcey world DeChambeau might have put himself into Ryder Cup contention as new buddy Brooks Koepka’s four-ball partner. But at 48th in points and with no OWGR help in sight for LIV, Bryson’s relying on a couple of recent major finishes: a T4 in May’s PGA Championship and a T20 at the U.S. Open. He’ll likely have to post a few more 58’s to break the Task Force bro-hold on Captain’s picks.
But it’s what DeChambeau said regarding his driver switch that should draw the attention of Far Hills, St Andrews and maybe even imagination-free Ponte Vedra Beach as the distance comment period is set to wrap August 14th.
Following Saturday’s 61, DeChambeau was asked about the Krank “Golf Formula Fire” driver he’s recently put in the bag and, as far as we know, is not paid to endorse.
Q. You told me earlier this year that you are using a new driver --
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, I plead the Fifth.
Q. Not talking about it?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: It's a great driver. It's won a bunch of world long drive championships, and it's performed the best -- it's performed -- how do I say this? It's probably performed the best I've ever had in the past five years in professional golf for me, ever since 2018 when I was striping it early in the year.
This driver is definitely (audio interruption) on it too much. I don't want to say too much. It's fantastic for anyone that's over 175 ball speed.
No biggy, right? It’s just a club for those over 175 m.p.h. ball speed, i.e. the touring pro set. There are another 13,500 or so drivers to choose from on the conforming list.
Except there was this exchange where the ass-kissing proved too hard to pass up:
Q. You are one of the hardest grinders out on the range that I've ever seen.
Down boy down!
You had a bogey-free round today, shot 9-under. It doesn't seem like you have anything to work on, but are you going to go to the range?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Just a cool-down session, and that's really it. Ever since I put this driver into play, it's not been really my golf swing. It's just hit on the toe, hit on the heel, everything comes back down the middle of the fairway, and I'm like, all right, let's go, pick up the tee and let's go. The driver has been really nice. It's allowed me to have some time to myself after rounds instead of going and working my butt off all the time.
So much for not saying “too much.”
Hit it on the toe, the heel, everything comes back down the middle of the fairway.
Since the governing bodies shelved the driver component of distance-curbing proposals after initial feedback, DeChambeau merely said the quiet part out loud: the modern driver takes less skill to hit and allows elite players to get away with misses.
While hardly a newsflash from White Sulphur Springs that the modern driver allows a skilled and thoughtful player to swing with abandon and put in less work, it’s still wild to see a player say the quiet part out loud. DeChambeau’s honesty, fabulous play and incredible scoring are to be commended, even if LIV is an equipment testing-free zone and they could put hands on the ball. He gained over 8.74 strokes on a field of 48 that saw 11 other players post bogey-free rounds.
But as the distance comment period winds down in a week and a number of players have suggested the driver should be on the table ahead of the ball—a few even voicing this without guidance from anti-everything Titleist—the remarks should inspire the governing bodies to revisit the big stick.
In March, 2022, the driver was announced as an “area of interest” with thoughts of revising “testing tolerance for measuring the Characteristic Time using the pendulum test” and “changes to Moment of Inertia to enhance the reward of a central impact.”
Those areas were taken off the table in March, 2023’s proposed “Model Local Rule” for elite competition balls tested under updated swing speeds.
R&A CEO Martin Slumbers addressed the topic at The Open, saying the feedback received suggested a change in driver specs for elite competition might mean changes to “three, four, maybe five clubs in the bag which could get hot relative to a less forgiving driver.”
This meant, in his and the USGA’s view, that a “model local rule then had a bigger impact” throughout the bag.
As with his counterpart at the USGA, Mike Whan, Slumbers also reiterated concerns of impacting the recreational game and the dreaded “Christmas morning” stuff about not cutting off the marketing connection between purchasing what the pros play. Yet based on the numbers and what elite players reap in the way of benefits from modern drivers versus the people actually paying $700 for the watermelon-sized heads, it’s increasingly apparent that manufacturers are selling people something not giving the average golfer similar benefits outlined by DeChambeau after his 61.
Krank, makers of DeChambeau’s forgiving driver, sell three heads with such a speed diversion in mind. They offer a conforming USGA driver and two others for slower speeds:
The topic of the driver face and how it’s tested were on the table as recently as March, 2022 when the USGA and The R&A were “interested in researching areas which might facilitate innovation for recreational golfers with slower swing speeds.”