If only he’d learn to get out of his own way
If only he’d learn to get out of his own way
I f Bryson DeChambeau hasn’t already achieved golfing greatness, then he’s certainly on the cusp. The three major tournaments in which he has played this year to date are generally accepted to be the real measure of greatness in the game, and his performance in them has been brilliant: tied for sixth in the Masters, solo second in the PGA Championship, and a win at the U.S. Open.
It was DeChambeau’s second U.S. Open victory, and he clinched it with a shot on the final hole that will go down as one of the greatest clutch shots in the game’s history: a 55-yard bunker shot to within four feet of the pin. (Elite players will tell you that long greenside bunker shots are among the most challenging they face. Moreover, DeChambeau had to execute that shot into one of the famed turtleback greens of Pinehurst Number 2, which added another degree of difficulty — or six — to the challenge.)
But DeChambeau’s most amazing accomplishment during his championship run around Pinehurst Number 2 is that, by the end of the tournament, most of the gallery was cheering wildly for him. This has not always — hell, it’s not ever been the case. A few people liked Bryson. Most found him quirky, annoying, or just plain disagreeable. But what happened at Pinehurst was different. There the people seemed to genuinely embrace Bryson. And he seemed to genuinely want to be embraced.
So he may be at a tipping point. He has a chance to become the first real “people’s champion” since Arnold Palmer. (Nicklaus was too bland/cold, Tiger too aloof/hot.) He’s got the game and maybe, that’s maybe, the persona to do it . . . if he’d just learn to get out of his own damn way.
***
When DeChambeau first began to be well-known, it tended to be for three things:
He had a degree in physics and a way of dropping that tidbit into press conferences in the same way that people who attended that school across the Charles from Boston work that fact into the conversation before their coats are even off at cocktail parties.
He used weird clubs; all of the irons in his bag were the same length. His explanation for this would include terms like “coefficient of restitution” and “standard deviation” and “moment of inertia.” This led to him to being dubbed “the Scientist.” When he was lining up a putt or preparing to hit an approach shot, TV announcers would say things like “I can only imagine the numbers and data and formulas running through the head of the Scientist right now,” which in turn would cause eye-rolling among fellow pros and anyone familiar with the concepts about which DeChambeau had been blathering. (Full disclosure: A defrocked aerospace engineer, I was an eye-roller.)
And he wore a flat hat as opposed to a baseball-style cap, visor, or bucket hat as worn by every other player on the tour. The flat hat featured his logo, which featured his profile, which featured him wearing . . . the flat hat.
Put all those things together and they seemed to scream: “Hey, look at me! I’m different!” It all seemed too planned. Too contrived. Too calculated (which I suppose is not inappropriate if you’re the Scientist). And it rubbed people the wrong way.
After the four-month shutdown of the PGA Tour during the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, DeChambeau emerged from quarantine having added 50 pounds of muscle and becoming the longest hitter the game had ever seen, something that surely did not make it less likely that cameras would turn in his direction. (To be fair, the added length gave him a significant competitive advantage, most dramatically demonstrated when he won the 2021 U.S. Open.)
He could also behave badly on the golf course. After hitting a poor bunker shot, he once slashed angrily at the sand and then berated a television cameraman for lingering too long on the scene, complaining that it would damage his brand. He thereby broke one of the cardinal rules of personal-brand management: Never refer to “your brand.”
Suffice it to say that DeChambeau’s Q scores were not very good. Which brings us to the camel in the room, his June 2022 jump to the LIV Tour, the upstart pro golf tour funded by the Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. LIV is part of the Saudis’ overall sportswashing strategy. When DeChambeau, one of the first to abandon the PGA Tour, made the jump, his signing bonus was reported to range from $150 to $200 million. He now plays in events televised on a fifth-tier outlet, in tournaments that nobody knows about, featuring formats that nobody really understands.
This did not help those Q scores. Which makes his metamorphosis at the U.S. Open all the more remarkable. By the end of that tournament, it was no longer Bryson “the Scientist.” Or “Bryson the Money-Grabbing Traitor.” Now it was Bryson the “the Entertainer,” a vardon-gripping amalgamation of Bill Nye, Hulk Hogan, and Oprah Winfrey.
Fans near the TV booths at Pinehurst needed to keep a safe distance to avoid being spritzed by the tongue-baths that the announcers were giving Bryson when he would pump his fist after sinking a long putt (“The crowd is loving it!”) or give an acknowledging tug to the brim of his now-baseball-style cap after sinking a mundane two-footer (“Even after his disappointment at missing the birdie, he doesn’t forget his fans!”) or stop to shake the hand of a wheelchair-bound boy behind a green after putting out (“In spite of the pressure on him, he still takes the time to give that young man a moment he’ll never forget!”). Never mind that we had just seen Rory McIlroy do the same thing about twelve minutes earlier, as had, no doubt, any other player who had seen the young lad.
It was remarkable to behold. So the question becomes: How did this happen?
Credit Bryson with the self-awareness to recognize that he needed to change. We know this because, before, during, and after the Open, he told two things to every radio host, local TV interviewer, and podcaster, on every SportsCenter hit, and in whatever other media outlet you can think of: “I recognized that I needed to change my approach to things” and “I had to embrace the fact that I’m out there to be an entertainer.”
Which is fine, up to a point. But when the words “I’m an entertainer” come out of your mouth as if it were from the mouth of one of those yutzes dropping the name of that school on the other side of the Charles, the statement cloys. It risks pointing out to people that they are being manipulated. It gets in the way of the position that DeChambeau really wants to hold in the fans’ minds. And I’m not talking about positioning in the artificial marketing sense, e.g., the sobriquet “the Scientist.” I’m talking about it from a genuine what’s-in-the-heart-of-Bryson-DeChambeau point of view.
***
I wrote an article about DeChambeau for NRO in September of 2021. Here’s how it ended:
Golf should hope that DeChambeau can sand off his behavioral rough edges while continuing to pursue what is an idiosyncratic, aesthetically horrifying, paradigm-busting, extraordinarily effective, ridiculously remunerative, and just plain compelling approach to the game.
Because a bit more quirkiness might not be all bad for this staid, tradition-laden, and wonderfully fusty old game.
He has made changes. He has sanded off some rough edges. And he seems to have landed in a place where he genuinely wants to be. Moreover, the fans seem to want him to be there.
I think Bryson DeChambeau wants to be seen as, and can be seen as, the people’s champion that golf hasn’t had since Arnie (assuming, that is, there is a truce between the PGA and LIV Tours). But he needs to be careful about backsliding, about getting in his own way as he has done so often in the past.
So here’s some unsolicited advice from a retired consultant. (Note to readers: Please forgive the blunt language, but you sometimes need to use it to get the client’s attention.)
Mr. DeChambeau:
If you want to become beloved as Bryson the Entertainer, here are the two things you must do:
Be entertaining.
Shut the f*** up about being entertaining.
The fans will more readily embrace you, and you can become who, in your heart of hearts, I think you truly want to be: the People’s Champion.