Bryson DeChambeau’s caddie has revealed what the US Open champion told him on the eighth hole of the final round at Pinehurst No. 2 about the driver head he had changed just before teeing off on Sunday.
Bryson DeChambeau became a two-time major champion at the weekend, with the 30-year-old winning his second US Open after an incredible battle against Rory McIlroy in North Carolina.
Of course, the majority of the drama came on the back nine on Sunday, with McIlroy, at one stage, taking a two shot lead over DeChambeau, who had begun the day three clear of the chasing pack.
But McIlroy would bogey three of the four final holes, missing short putts on the 16th and 18th to hand DeChambeau the chance to make a par on the last which clinched him the crown.
The drama would continue after the winning putt, with McIlroy surprising DeChambeau by leaving the course immediately after the result was confirmed, rather than congratulating the LIV Golf star.
But the action would start even before DeChambeau had teed off for the final round, with the American making a big change to his bag in the moments before leaving the range.
Greg Bodine shares why Bryson DeChambeau decided to change his driver head before final round of US Open
DeChambeau was pictured changing his driver head – after seemingly proving to be nearly flawless off the tee over the first three days. Understandably, there was real concern about how the change would impact the American, particularly as it appeared to come so soon before he left the practice ground and headed for the first tee.
It is fair to say that DeChambeau’s driving was anything but flawless on Sunday, as he frequently seemed to push his ball out to the right of the fairway.
Nevertheless, Greg Bodine has told Fried Egg Golf that he was not at all concerned when DeChambeau made the decision to make a change – as he also provided a fascinating insight into why he made the call, and the admission he made eight holes into his round.
“My true honest answer is I wasn’t worried at all, and I’ll tell you why, there’s a couple of reasons. But the biggest thing is he, since using the Krank driver, he’s probably gone through, I don’t know, it’s no less than 25, it’s probably more than 40 heads,” he said.
“Because of how hard he hits it, I actually have a driver head right here, the curvature on the face, it’s like a little more rounded, so what happened is he hit a few drives, this is 13 minutes before we’re supposed to walk over, hits a couple of drives and the spin rate goes up a little bit.
“He’s like okay, I see him thinking, I’m like this is weird, he hits a couple left, couple right, and he looks at his manager, Connor, and he’s like, ‘Connor, new head’. We have four more minutes before we have to walk off. He gets his gauge out, he has this little curvature thing that measures the bulge and roll, he has his little gadget that has a slightly curved edge, little metal thing and he puts it on, and usually it’s flush to the face, and that’s eight inches of bulge and roll – that’s a whole other conversation as to how that’s measured – but he put that on, and there was a little gap right in the middle of the face, there was a tiny little gap in the gauge and so he knew that his driver had been flattened a little bit.
‘I wasn’t worried at all’
“It’s happened several times before, there’s been several times that he’s thrown in a new head, maybe goes through a couple. And with the way that Bryson swings it, if he doesn’t have that curvature on the face, it’s a lot harder for him to hit it straight and have the right spin. So we’ve learned that once that spin starts to usually go up, and it goes a little right or left, the head, it’s the right time to go, so right after he measured it, he was like ‘new head’.
“He hit three balls with the different head, he hit three balls with the second head, and the third, or the fourth however you want to look at it, performed pretty well, but it was a five degree driver, not a five and a half degree. So anyways, as we all know, the more loft you have on a club, even if it’s half a degree, when you’re swinging it at 127 mph clubhead speed, those little fractions of difference make sense, even whether you notice it or it’s in your head. But he was like, ‘this is better than the one that I have’.
“We went out there and he hit it on the range, he literally hit five balls with it, and as you saw, I think we hit one fairway with the driver, missing it right. On the back nine, he tried to overcorrect it and he missed a couple left. It’s funny, on the eighth hole, he goes, ‘G Bo, I don’t think we should have switched driver heads’. I’m like, ‘yeah, I don’t think so either’.”
Only DeChambeau could probably confidently make that call
The depth of the answer probably sums up how there does not appear to be one decision DeChambeau makes with his game which has no rationale behind it.
Of course, everyone has their perceptions of DeChambeau, so it always seemed unlikely that the change would be made with little thought. You would imagine that he was always going to play the percentages.
It is interesting that he admitted that he may have made an error with the change, but he did not shy away from pulling the driver out of the bag – even when it appeared to be the wrong move on the 18th tee.
From the outside, there does not appear to be someone in the world who knows their equipment better than DeChambeau, and that has definitely played a big part in turning him into a major champion.
The fact that his caddie was not at all worried in such a high pressure environment says everything about the confidence DeChambeau has in what he is doing.
Receive exclusive golf news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
