AUGUSTA, Ga. – As one longtime observer recently noted, the PGA Tour is a Marvel movie without a villain.
For all the challenges LIV Golf has created the last three years by siphoning off top players from the Tour and creating a divide that has rocked the foundation of the game, it’s the loss of those players, like Bryson DeChambeau, who were unapologetically polarizing, that hurts the most.
“Villain” is always in the eye of the beholder, and to be fair, DeChambeau is as passionate about golf and his pursuit of brilliance as he is indifferent to the socially acceptable stop signs he regularly blazes through. From one-length clubs to his dogged chase for longer drives, the 30-year-old is a content fire hose whose exit to LIV Golf was a blow to the Tour.
It doesn’t matter which side of the Tour/LIV Golf divide you reside, the mad scientist from Modesto is the gift that keeps giving as evidenced by his 65 on Day 1 at Augusta National. It was all the normal “Bryson” stuff: big drives (316-yard average), clutch putting (first in the field in putting average) and plenty of fodder for the typist and talking heads who hang on his every word.
“I hit four pine needles rather than five and it worked out perfectly,” he smiled, tongue firmly in cheek, when asked about a particularly bold shot on the 15th hole that rocketed through a pine tree.
It’s that kind of ridiculousness that has made DeChambeau a media mainstay ever since he finished tied for 21st at the 2016 Masters, which is strangely his best finish in the year’s first major. This, after all, is the same course DeChambeau figured in 2020 was a “par-67.”
But while he still shows flashes of the madman who has been fixated on becoming a golf “robot,” there’s a softer, more introspective side. Gone is the dismissiveness that made DeChambeau so divisive. It’s been replaced by a nuanced outlook and a perfectionist who has come to terms with the reality that two things can be true.
Even his infamous “par-67” comment has been thoroughly walked back. “You mess up. I’m not a perfect person,” he said when asked about the comment. “Everybody messes up. You learn from your mistake, and that was definitely one.”
There’s a distinct level of self-awareness with this version that wasn’t part of the previous complicated package. For DeChambeau, it’s part of the maturing process – nothing more, nothing less.
“It’s more just getting older,” he said. “It’s definitely taken time to get comfortable and getting to a place where no matter what happens today, I’m OK.
“Focusing on playing a fun game. You know, taking that perspective has definitely enlightened me a little bit and allowed me to play a little more free.”
If that’s not exactly what we’ve come to expect from the player whose stated goal when he joined the Tour was to reinvent the game, know that he’s still very much on the cutting edge of what’s possible.
While the tone and rhetoric has been dialed down, the obsessive pursuit of more knowledge, more power, more consistency is very much alive. The difference now is he’s learned to embrace the inevitable variables.
“Trying to be a robot is always something I’ve tried to do but it’s not something that’s feasible in this game that’s ever-changing,” DeChambeau said. “I try to be as repeatable as possible but it just doesn’t happen. It’s a lot of painting an image and trying to execute that shot out there, compared to just hitting the same stock shot every time.”
This version of Bryson feels closer to artist than it does scientist and his 7-under card on Thursday at the Masters is a testament to the struggles of trying to be perfect while playing an imperfect game.
The Old Bryson probably would have been flummoxed by wind gusts to 40 mph that made the opening round a maddening trip through Augusta National’s pines. He would have retreated to the practice area searching for an answer that probably doesn’t exist. But this version, the protagonist-turned-pragmatist who took his talents to LIV Golf to feed his desire to be a catalyst of change, was far more reserved.
“I shot 65 today and that was one of the best rounds of golf I’ve played in a long time,” he said. “There’s three more days to go and I’m not losing sight of that fact; that it’s right there in front of me. Just got to go execute.”
DeChambeau is not a villain; maybe he never was. But he’s still one of the game’s most compelling and entertaining figures.