Golf’s most-ridiculed ‘jerk’ is back from the brink. His wild reboot can rock the game again

‘F***ing hard’: Inside golf’s ‘relentless’ test as staggering record to spark all-time carnage

Former world No. 1 makes shock withdrawal as US Open tee times revealed

GOLF GONE B.A.D.

In 2020, the new decade had arrived and, with it, came the inescapable feeling that something B.A.D. was brewing.

The new and improved Bryson Aldrich DeChambeau was here, and things would never be the same again after the scary, and imposing force, had his say.

His brutish figure, and dedication to dizzying speed training sessions, presented him with the very real threat of changing the game as we knew it through his monster drives.

While some welcomed his unique brand of innovation, others feared that he had unlocked a cheat code that would fundamentally alter the nature in which the game had been played for several centuries.

DeChambeau did little to allay traditionalists’ fears, and less to hide his smugness over the unrest he was single-handedly creating.

By this point, DeChambeau had already presented as something of a golfing curiosity via his quirky methods. For example, he played with clubs that were all the same length, and went through a phase of using a compass to find “true pin locations” before the act was banned.

But outside of a handful of wins between 2017 and 2018, DeChambeau was yet to do anything that truly marked him as a game-changer.

Then came the pandemic year of 2020, in which DeChambeau used lockdown to add about 45 kilograms of mass — mostly to his upper body — in the hunt for greater distance.

To hit big had always been a major advantage, so the restless mind of DeChambeau couldn’t help but wonder just how great a benefit lay beyond the outer limits.

He set about finding out. Soon, there was no doubt about the answer.

At 2020’s second major, the US Open, DeChambeau destroyed the field in a runaway, six-shot victory, in which he was the only player to break par at Winged Foot.

He did so with a bomb-and-gauge approach that saw him hit only 23 fairways out of 56 — an ugly stat line that no purist was happy to see succeed. For greater context, no US Open winner had hit fewer than 27 since 1981.

DeChambeau was now rapidly moving up the world rankings, proving that accuracy off the tee barely mattered if you hit superhuman distances.

The freakish trait, and the jarring result at Winged Foot, marked himself as the man to beat for the rest of the calendar year.

Things came to a head, however, in November when DeChambeau was the favourite to win the Masters at Augusta National.

Given his ability to hit the par-five greens in two shots, he boldly reduced the famed course to a Micky Mouse par-67 when speaking to the press before the major.

Given he hadn’t finished inside the top-25 in three previous trips to Augusta — where distance doesn’t count for everything — DeChambeau’s comments did nothing to endear himself to the golfing public. It didn’t help that talking down Augusta National is sporting sacrilege akin to attacking Lord’s, Wimbledon, or the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

But behind that widespread anger lay a fear that, for all of DeChambeau’s bravado, there was truth that he could well reduce the storeyed course to little more than a joke.

The fear, however, proved to be unfounded when DeChambeau’s plans fell apart due to his wayward driver, and he spent most of the weekend in midfield obscurity.

He finished outside of the top-30, a whopping 18 shots behind winner Dustin Johnson — and it felt like a score for the ‘good guys’.

Suddenly, the threat of a hulked-up DeChambeau brutalising his opposition didn’t feel so real anymore.

You wonder if it felt the same, too, for DeChambeau, whose slide had begun.

He would still win again on the PGA Tour, taking out the Arnold Palmer Invitation in March by one stroke.

That event saw DeChambeau bash a 370-yard drive across the lake at Bay Hill’s sixth hole, with him willing the ball over the water with a raised-arms, Frat Guy gesture that is now iconic.

When people spoke of DeChambeau changing the game forever, these were the kinds of never-dared-before shots that were being imagined.

Ultimately, those moments were too few and far between for him to alter the nature of the sport in any meaningful way.

DeChambeau didn’t win again that year, with his driving accuracy a glaring issue, while his play around the greens left plenty to be desired.

Bigger problems, however, were to come.

DeChambeau missed the cut four times in his first six starts of 2022, before he finished T56 at the US Open, just two years after he won as he battled a hand injury.

The former world No.4 also secretly suffered a crisis of confidence, saying that there were “many times” he simply didn’t know where he was going to hit the ball off the tee after putting all his focus into distance.

More concerning, however, was a trip to the doctor who told him that he could be eating himself to a premature grave as he tried to sustain his bulked-up physique.

“I ate improperly for almost a year and a half and I was starting to feel weird,” DeChambeau told the Five Clubs podcast. “My gut was all messed up, and so I went completely healthy, went on a Whole30 diet, got a nutritionist, did blood work, measured stuff in my gut biome. I was super inflamed.”

As quickly as he became a golf brute, DeChambeau shed the kilos — he’s lost most of the 40 kilograms he gained, including nine in just one month — changing his eating habits in a bid to stay healthy and injury-free.

DeChambeau was now in better shape and, by his assessment, not for the loss of any distance due to his sharpened “neuromuscular”.

And yet, he was no closer to being a regular world-beater. Far from it.

In the midst of his struggles, DeChambeau cut-and-run by cashing a reported $125 million (A$187m) sign-on figure to join LIV Golf.

It was now that the villainy of DeChambeau truly kicked into high gear.

DeChambeau coldly explained his decision to join the Saudi-funded circuit as a “business decision for my family’s future” and a bid to have “a lot more free time”.

The new nickname ‘Business DeCision’ started to circulate.

The perception of DeChambeau being money-hungry was done no favours when he failed to finish inside the top-10 in any 48-man event during LIV Golf’s inaugural season.

Adding to the picture of a man spiralling out of control were scenes at LIV Golf’s Chicago stop in 2022, when DeChambeau bizarrely clotheslined himself with a gallery rope.

He recoiled in shock and, strangely looking for someone to blame, yelled “what the f**k guys?”

It should’ve come as no surprise, though.

The blame game came from the same character who, at the Open Championship in 2021, said his “driver sucks” — not himself — as he finished 13 shots off the pace.

A year earlier at the Rocket Mortgage Classic, he was berating a PGA Tour cameraman for filming him after he reacted angrily to a poor bunker shot.

“He was literally watching me the whole entire way up after getting out of the bunker, walking up next to the green. And I just was like, ‘Sir, what is the need to watch me that long?’” DeChambeau said.

DeChambeau was always looking for something, or someone, to point the finger at instead of himself.

And it invited brutal criticism from prominent voices within the PGA Tour, such as Golfweek columnist Eamonn Lynch who wrote at the time: “Credit DeChambeau’s optimism in thinking that being shown acting like a jerk would hurt his image rather than merely solidify it.”

Some of the straighter shooters on the Tour were also sick of DeChambeau’s antics.

None more so than Brooks Koepka who was one-half of a long-running feud with DeChambeau after a bizarre quip about not having “any abs” in his ESPN Body Issue shoot.

Koepka didn’t hide his distaste for DeChambeau thereafter, stopping mid-interview at the 2021 PGA Championship when his countryman loudly walked behind him.

Koepka eye-rolled before saying: “I lost my train of thought hearing that bulls***”.

“F***ing Christ.”

BRYSON BACK FROM THE BRINK

DeChambeau entered 2023 as yesterday’s news.

Few took notice that, while explaining his weight loss, he vowed he was “trending” having set himself a more sustainable platform to improve.

“I’m telling you … and if I can get that mix of 2018 and 2020 then I’ll be difficult to beat on my day. I’m finally in a place where I feel I can play elite golf again,” he said.

He wasn’t lying.

DeChambeau belatedly exploded in the back-half of 2023, making good on his promise that he was getting back to his best.

He captured his first pro win since 2021 when he shot the lights out at the Greenbrier with an unbelievable weekend of 61-58.

Two LIV Golf events later, he won again in Chicago to kick his revival into the next phase.

Such is the nature of golf’s bisected state that it was hard to know if DeChambeau was truly one of the world’s best players again, unless he could deliver at a major, too.

Last month’s PGA Championship gave us the answer, with DeChambeau coming within a whisker of taking home the Wanamaker Trophy just a month after a strong top-10 finish at Augusta, too.

DeChambeau shot 20-under at Valhalla to take the clubhouse lead on the final day, only for Xander Schauffele to edge him out by one shot to win his first major.

At 21-under, it was the lowest score to par ever at a men’s golf major, while it saw Schauffele finally rid himself the tag of being a nearly-man.

And yet, somehow, it felt like DeChambeau was just as big a winner on the day.

If you couldn’t appreciate the man, you could still appreciate the player, who brutally collapsed from the top of the pile just as quickly as he ascended it, only to somehow rise again as a third version of himself.

DeChambeau is now undoubtedly a factor at the majors once more. For this week’s US Open, at the time of writing, he had the fifth-shortest odds to win behind only Scottie Scheffler, Schauffele, Rory McIlroy and Collin Morikawa.

Buoyed by his close call at the PGA Championship, the 30-year-old believes that he’s healed enough to contend.

“I feel a lot more comfortable under the gun in major championships being able to get the job done, even though I didn’t (at the PGA Championship),” DeChambeau said this week.

“I feel like I’m right there. It has given me that confidence to say, ‘OK, next step is to complete the task.’

“What I took out of Valhalla was, I would say personally, the confidence that I can do it again.”

He added: “My game is in a pretty good spot … I’m excited for the week and got some good mojo going forward.”

It’s a remarkable spot for DeChambeau to be in again, but more remarkable has been the rapid gains he’s made in the popularity standings.

DeChambeau has cut a more mature figure over the past two years, clearly humbled by the experience of his failed bulking experiment, and repeated missteps that riled the golfing public.

Wacky predictions and an inflated sense of ability are no longer, while DeChambeau is now more willing to spend time and effort on his fans.

A moment captured by a fan as DeChambeau made the turn at Valhalla exemplifies this change in psyche best.

Despite being in the pressure-cooker of contending for a major on Sunday, the star tossed his ball to a young fan mid-round.

When it was swiped by an opportunistic, older man, DeChambeau could’ve been forgiven for carrying on with his mission. Instead, DeChambeau chose to make a stand, calling out the man who took the ball, and demanded him to come back.

Realising he was no match for the embarrassment of being publicly berated by one of the game’s biggest stars, the man obliged.

Another onlooker declared DeChambeau “a man of the people”, and cheers followed.

Imagine that being said of DeChambeau in 2022.

While no moment better exemplifies the character development of DeChambeau since turning 30 last September, there are other snippets that have pointed to his greater maturity.

For example, at this year’s Masters, DeChambeau didn’t shy away from those Augusta comments, admitting that he was wrong to dismiss the course’s challenge.

“For me, I have a level of respect for this golf course that’s a little bit different than a couple years ago,” he said.

“Regarding the 67 comment, you know, you mess up. I’m not a perfect person. Everybody messes up. You learn from your mistake, and that was definitely one.”

Meanwhile, DeChambeau has been eager to lean into the ‘man of the people’ moniker by spending less time in the gym, and more time entertaining fans.

He is the proud owner of a YouTube channel that now has more than 650,000 followers tuning into his entertaining content, such as trying to break par with Walmart starter clubs, or playing a few holes with Siri picking all his clubs.

Some will point to the irony that it was moves like DeChambeau’s to LIV Golf that did fans the biggest disservice possible by ensuring that the world’s best golfers only meet four times a year.

Nonetheless, what can’t be argued is that DeChambeau knows how to entertain a crowd, and wants to do so, which will inevitably continue to boost his popularity.

“When the moment comes, knowing what to do, what to say, how to act, is really important,” DeChambeau said at Valhalla. “When I was younger, I didn’t understand what it was.

“Yeah, I would have great celebrations and whatnot, but I didn’t know what it meant and what I was doing it necessarily for.

“Now I’m doing it a lot more for the fans and for the people around and trying to be a bit of an entertainer that plays good golf every once in a while.”

There are, of course, some questionable quirks that remain.

For example, DeChambeau has been pushing the technical boundaries once more by 3D-printing his irons, while a scorecard book still emblazoned with the initials ‘BAD’ does not scream reform.

But he’s a far cry from the beefy physics major that treated fans, fairways, gallery ropes, and all golfing convention as an afterthought.

There’s a feeling that fans can connect with him more — at least, as much as one can connect with a man nicknamed the ‘Mad Scientist’.