Does Bryson DeChambeau know something every other tour pro doesn’t?

DeChambeau does everything his own way

He has a name straight out of Hollywood, the looks to match, and a demeanour that suggests he not only owns the place, but the place next door as well. Bryson DeChambeau is golf’s latest poster boy, but is he the real deal?

I saw him for the first time ‘live’ on the practice ground at Hilton Head – less than a week after his brilliant performance as an amateur at Augusta. Come Sunday, I was enthusing on Sky Sports that this young man was heading for ‘superstar’ status. Was I right or simply deceived by the packaging and branding surrounding this impressive young man?

His penchant for an old-school Hogan cap has brought with it his own personal style and Puma has already moved quickly to snap him up. But since his auspicious start as a pro, it has been more about missed cuts than riding high on Sunday leaderboards. No matter how good your amateur career is, past experience shows us that it has little bearing on the professional circuit. His potential is without question, but then the PGA Tour graveyard is littered with past USGA Amateur and NCAA champions.

As a coach, I look at the swing technique of any newcomer with an eye to two hugely important benchmarks. Namely, how easy is it to repeat and does the quality of strike suffer at speed and under pressure? His technique is far from conventional, but my belief is that he has the swing mechanics nailed.

He has the attention to detail of a golfing scientist and plays looking for the flare, rather than the flaw. From my experience, good golf can be played with the mindset of an artist or that of the scientist, but great golf occurs when the two blend together without conflict. Knowing all there is to know about the intricacies and minutia of your own swing does not suit everybody, but then neither does the constant artistic search for that “perfect” swing feel.

A physics-heavy instruction book called The Golfing Machine by Homer Kelley came out nearly 50 years ago and Bryson has devoured it page by page to put together his own take on what is important in building a swing to deliver power and consistency. Ill-informed critics refer to the book as a ‘method swing’, but that’s a bit like calling Shakespeare a dictionary writer! While the dictionary provides us with the bare words, it takes an individual to compose them in a way to produce those plays and sonnets. The same applies to the Golfing Machine. It shows variable ways of putting a golf swing together and allows the reader to effectively pick and choose.

It’s not quite as simple as mixing and matching your cinema treats. The language of the book is that of an aircraft engineer, which Kelley was. Anyone delving into its pages needs to be intellectually matched, and it’s here that Bryson is putting his engineering degree to good use. He has adapted traditional golf thinking and has managed to dilute all the geeky terminology so you and I can just about make sense of it all. Make no mistake, he has the ability to change the way golf is played; only now he needs to deliver on the world’s biggest stage.

Much has already been made of all his iron shafts being the same length and therefore lie. He also has huge oversized grips, not too dissimilar to an umbrella handle, which promote a high-handed set-up at address. The swing itself is a product of individual stylising as well. It’s certainly a one-plane system and there’s almost no wrist hinge until very late in backswing. At this point, the artist inside Bryson takes over from the scientific origins, imparting varying degrees of wrist action to deliver a host of shot patterns.

But take the swing out of the equation and there is still a lot more to this young man than a strut which can rival Dustin Johnson’s. His quirkiness and intellect is admirable, and his maturity and appreciation for nostalgia has already won over fans and fellow pros. Golf has a habit of rewarding the unorthodox and in Bryson DeChambeau, the sport has found a young man whose ability more than matches his confidence.

He just needs the victories to go with it.