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“No chance,” said Rory McIlroy (75, T8), when asked if he could have foreseen a player hitting so few fairways and winning. “I don’t really know what to say because that’s just the complete opposite of what you think a U.S. Open champion does.
“Look, he’s found a way to do it,” McIlroy added. “Whether that’s good or bad for the game, I don’t know, but it’s just – it’s not the way I saw this golf course being played or this tournament being played. It’s kind of hard to really wrap my head around it.”
One of the confounding things about DeChambeau is that while he generates the most buzz with his driving, he’s not one-dimensional. His 67 was the best final round by three shots over Dustin Johnson, Erik van Rooyen and Taylor Pendrith. Was it all just brawn? Hardly.
DeChambeau also tied for fifth in greens in regulation and tied for 11th in putting.
“You still have to be able to control your ball,” said Shane Lowry (72, 15 over), “you still have to be able to chip and putt. If it was just about hitting the ball long, the long drivers would be out here playing in these major championships and they’re not.”
The putting, in particular, has been a long time coming for the winner.
“The putting has gradually improved over the course of my career,” DeChambeau said. “I was dead last when I came out on TOUR, and the SIK guys, SIK golf, they helped me understand how a ball needs to roll in order to give me the best chance to hole a putt.
“Over the course of these four years, every year I’ve gotten a little bit better,” he added.
How much better can he get? He doesn’t know, he said, but he intends to find out. He intends to keep powering through, ignoring the doubters, and changing the game.
“I’m not going to stop,” he said. “Next week I’m going to be trying a 48-inch driver.”
DeChambeau has a major, and the Bryson DeChambeau experiment gets more interesting by the day.
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Source: PGA tour
