History is surely going to remember Bryson DeChambeau as one of the most significant players of his generation, with the two-time US Open champion so unique compared to most of his peers.
Bryson DeChambeau is now one of the most popular players in the game. But it is probably fair to say that it took the wider golfing public a long time to really appreciate the 31-year-old.
DeChambeau quickly became known for being the player who would use a set of irons with shafts all the same length. Meanwhile, it is hard to imagine that his action comes up too often when fans debate the greatest looking golf swings of all-time.
And of course, DeChambeau really helped change how the game was played at the highest level when, from late 2019, he decided to transform his body and add a significant amount of speed to his swing.
Bryson DeChambeau once credited LIV Golf star for inspiring him when he decided to obliterate his swing
He had won his first PGA Tour event in 2017, at the John Deere Classic. But it would appear that that was also a pivotal year for DeChambeau for another reason.
Speaking to Mark Immelman in 2021, DeChambeau explained how he felt compelled to reinvent his swing – and he named the player he used as the blueprint.
“But I started thinking about this, and that came about from missing the cut at the British Open after I won John Deere in 2017. I missed the cut, it was just misses both ways, I thought I had it figured out and then randomly something would pop up and miss. I’m like what the heck’s going on? Now I’m doing all this with speed by the way, so right now, I’m in the speed journey of it, learning to add as much speed as I possibly can while having a stable structure. Going back to when I missed the cut, I came back and said I’m never going to let this happen again. After the season’s over, I’m going to spend three weeks totally changing my golf swing, just going to obliterate it. And I’m going to figure out why Dustin Johnson, and this is the guy that impressed me the most, is Dustin Johnson, because he didn’t really think about it, didn’t really do much, and boom, he would do it every single time. Now you’ve got guys like Collin Morikawa, Jon Rahm and a few others that have similar match ups,” he said.
“So I started asking the question what is Dustin doing that is allowing him to be repeatable, and I started looking really closely through impact and his body, I started looking at body positions. How is his arm oriented? How is Ben Hogan’s arm oriented? I started creating correlations between some of the best ball strikers in the world, Trevino, Greg Norman, there’s a bunch of great ball strikers who had a similar look through impact with their left arm.”
How Bryson DeChambeau performed on the PGA Tour in 2018
It is no surprise that DeChambeau used Johnson for inspiration. He became the world number one in 2017, having won the US Open the previous year. And he has spent the best part of three years at the summit of the world rankings across his career.
DeChambeau meanwhile, saw some impressive results. He won four times in 2018, including at The Memorial. He also won two FedEx Cup playoff events.
But he was clearly not satisfied with where his game got to. He did not register a single top 20 finish in the majors in 2018 – or 2019 for that matter.
And it would arguably only be towards the end of the 2019 season where DeChambeau would start to elevate his game to the superstar level he always had the potential to reach.
Receive exclusive golf news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
