Originally Posted: June 2, 2018
Bryson DeChambeau majored in physics at Southern Methodist University. He went on to win the Memorial with a birdie on the second playoff hole Sunday, June 3.
Bryson DeChambeau is no Einstein, but he would like to meet the man. And who knows, given the uncertainties of time-space travel the encounter could happen.
Until then, DeChambeau must be content to discuss matters of physics with members of the golf media whose eyes glaze over when the 24-year-old starts in on the mechanics of swing theory (as opposed to string theory, which also interests him).
“I’m not going to give too much away,” he said of nagging questions concerning his swing concepts. “But it’s got to do with anatomical limits of your body and how you can best utilize them for your proprioception.”
That sound you hear is golf writers clicking on Google to understand what the heck proprio-something-or-other means. (Answer: a sense of the relative position of one’s own parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement.)
Uh … OK.
DeChambeau is a different breed of golfer, or different kind of cat, as he likes to say. He brings a kind of Money Ball meets Bill Nye the Science Guy approach to the game.
And while unorthodox, his methodology is making waves. On Saturday, those crashing waters reached Banzai Pipeline proportions, which is to say DeChambeau shot a 6-under-par 66 to take the lead entering Sunday’s final round of the Memorial Tournament at hot and steamy Muirfield Village Golf Club.
Hot and steamy, but no thunderstorms. That missing weather piece is forecast to happen late Sunday morning, prompting the PGA Tour to move up tee times (7:30 to 9:30 a.m.) and send players off both nines in threesomes. That makes it more difficult to keep track of who is doing what, but no more challenging than following who was leading the tournament at any specific point on Saturday.
The third round began with Kyle Stanley and 19-year-old Joaquin Niemann leading at 11 under, and over the next 4 hours and 15 minutes it required a math major to calculate who was doing what and when.
Appropriate that DeChambeau, who majored in physics at Southern Methodist University, ended the day at 14 under and with a one-stroke lead over Stanley, Niemann and Patrick Cantley.
At one point on Saturday the lead belonged to or was shared by Stanley, Niemann, Cantley, five-time Memorial winner Tiger Woods, 2010 Memorial winner Justin Rose and DeChambeau.
Wait. What? Back up a second. Woods was leading? Tis true. The winner of 79 tour events, Woods grabbed a share of the lead with a front nine of 31 that included an eagle at No. 5 and birdies at 6, 7 and 9. But his putter, the blade that cut him like a knife during Friday’s round, again turned against him on the back nine.
He three-putted from 3 feet, 10 inches at No. 14, three-putted No. 16 and missed a 4-footer for par at 18 to turn a great round into a good one.
Woods sits five strokes shy of DeChambeau, but thinks he is most definitely in the hunt.
“The weather is supposed to come in and it’s supposed to be iffy, and if there’s wind associated with it, then I don’t think the guys will shoot as low,” Woods said, hopeful that higher scoring will allow him to be the one to go low and win.
He was not the only one thinking low to go.
Niemann: “I think I have to go low to have a chance.”
Stanley: “Guys behind you are going to free wheel it and play well … so for one of us to win tomorrow one of us is going to have to put up a pretty good number.”
Rose: “It’s going to take something low to finish it out (Sunday).”
DeChambeau echoed nothing of the kind. Didn’t have to. It doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out that simply shooting par won’t solve anything on Sunday. READ MORE