Tag: PGA Championship 2021

KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. – In the battle between the longest hitter on the PGA Tour and the longest course in major championship history, round 1 went to the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island Golf Resort.

Bryson DeChambeau returned an even-par 72 on Thursday (leading one of the judges to score it a draw), but he looked bruised and battered afterwards and admitted as much.

“The wind just kicked my butt,” he said. “Just grinding out there, it takes a lot out of you.”

As a matter of fact, he struggled to remember many of the finer details of his up-and-down round, which began with two birdies in his first three holes, starting at No. 11, playing downwind before a sloppy 3-putt bogey at 13 and a string of four bogeys in a row when the wind flipped into his face. As he tried to remember where he had taken three putts – was it 12 or was it 13? It was 13! – an exasperated DeChambeau gave up and said, “I’m all out of sorts. It’s a lot of wind out there and heat.”

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In actuality, it was just a typical windy day at Kiawah, but for DeChambeau, who turns hitting every shot into a math equation, the wind put him through an assortment of mental exercises.

“This golf course takes it out of you. This is the most difficult golf course that I’ve played on Tour, and that is a straight-up fact for me,” he said. “That requires a lot of energy.”

Eventually, DeChambeau was told that if he looked behind him he could see his hole-by-hole scorecard in lights and that allowed him to gather himself and continue discussing his misadventures on his first nine holes where he was in danger of falling out of contention at the year’s second major on Thursday.

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“Three-putted 13, then 14 kind of came about from just not making a good first shot. 15, hit two good shots, just misaligned the drive on 15, hit it too far left, didn’t get it up and down. 16, misjudged the wind on the first shot, and there you go,” he said. “It’s a quick four bogeys and off and running after a good start.”

But DeChambeau played steady from there, making birdies on both of the par 5s (Nos. 2 and 7) and traded a bogey at No. 3 with a birdie at No. 8 when he drained a 20-foot birdie putt.

“For the most part, I stuck my head up high and kept it high and was able to finish strong on the front nine,” he said. “Played really well.”

That might be a stretch. His putter was cold (-1.385 SG: Putting), his driver was crooked (8 of 14 fairways) and his iron game was stymied by a breath of wind by Kiawah standards (11 of 18 greens in regulation). He’s going to have to do better at flighting his irons if he’s going to mount a charge for the title. As DeChambeau’s third shot from 97 yards got caught blowing in the wind, he seemed mystified.

“Oh my goodness,” he muttered as it hit short of the green and bounced into a deep bunker left of the green that led to a bogey on a par 5. Still, returning a score at level par is nothing to sniff at on a day when only four players broke 70 in the early wave.

“Getting to 4-over is really nothing out here either. It’s diabolical,” DeChambeau said. “You’ve got to be on point every single hole.”

Watching DeChambeau battle on Thursday was a reminder that golf is hard, even when you can hit it a country mile.

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KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. – The Incredible Bulk meets the longest course in major championship history.

“This golf course is a beast,” said Bryson DeChambeau. “Hopefully I can unleash the beast.”

Pete Dye’s Ocean Course masterpiece at Kiawah Island Golf Resort measures in at 7,846 yards and when the wind blows, look out.

“It is probably one of the hardest golf courses I’ve ever played,” DeChambeau said.

The reigning U.S. Open champion is set to make his fifth appearance in the PGA Championship this week, and finished T-4 last year at TPC Harding Park, which at the time was his best finish at a major. During his pre-tournament press conference on Wednesday, DeChambeau expressed plenty of respect for a course that has forced him to take some head covers off for approaches to greens and, heavens to Betsy, a tee shot at a par 3.

PGA Championship: Tee times | Photos

“I have not had hybrids or 4-irons into par-3s since I’ve gotten longer,” he said. “That’s a new one.”

But if anyone can take advantage of his prodigious length this week, it could be DeChambeau, who leads the PGA Tour in driving distance at 322 yards. ESPN’s Andy North marveled at DeChambeau’s bold attempt to drive the par-5 sixth green at Bay Hill in March during the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

“No one else can hit it the places he can hit it right now,” said North, a two-time U.S. Open champion during his playing days. “Anybody watched Bay Hill, the couple of tee shots he hit at Bay Hill were the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, our lines were 50 yards to the right of that, and it was still scary.”

Scary is to hear DeChambeau talk about throttling back and still belting a drive of 385 yards last week at the AT&T Byron Nelson. He abandoned his 4.5-degree Cobra driver in favor of a model that has three degrees more loft, a different face design and different weight. It more closely resembles a Cobra driver he used back in 2018 when he said he was driving it on a string until he broke the face.

“It’s not fully maxed out with everything, and there are reasons for that,” he explained. “You can’t let it loose out here. There’s certain golf courses like last week (at TPC Craig Ranch near Dallas) I could kind of let it loose a little bit, but even at that I was still trying to control ball flight. I’m still trying to gain speed. It’s not like I’m not. It’s just I’m trying to find more efficient ways to do it.”

For the first time since undergoing his physical transformation, DeChambeau has hit a wall in his pursuit of speed.

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“I’m the strongest I’ve ever been, but it doesn’t produce swing speed, which is really interesting, so how to increase swing speed like you’re working out is something that nobody has ever really figured out,” he explained. “When quarantine came about I had time to physically transform everything. I took a couple weeks off of even playing golf or touching a golf club and literally changed my body. I don’t have that time now.”

And so while he continues down rabbit holes in search of answers on how to gain more distance, he’s content that his power game is an advantage at the Ocean Course – “If you don’t hit it long, it’s going to be a tough week,” he said – but it might not be his biggest one.

“If I can hit it straight this week in this wind and control the golf ball and control the flight of it, that’ll be my biggest advantage,” he said.

That may be a big ‘if.’ DeChambeau’s high ball flight isn’t ideal for Kiawah, where the fickle wind causes indecision in club selection and execution. DeChambeau, the Tour’s most analytical golfer, has been known to simulate the dew on a golf ball to try to understand how it affected spin rates on wedge shots. To no surprise, he was up to his usual tricks in trying to prep for wind conditions at the PGA.

“Man, you guys are going to eat this one up, but the laminar flow of the wind and how it works,” he said.  “A lot of it is going to be dependent on luck this week. I will say that. When it’s dependent on luck you have to be patient.”

It should be great theater to see whether the World No. 5 can blast drivers and find the short grass and flight his irons into the wind and maintain his composure at what he calls one of the toughest courses he’s ever played. But he said he’s up to the challenge and wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I would say a few weeks a year is OK. That’s for sure,” he said. “This is one of those weeks.”

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