Bryson DeChambeau hit a superbly executed bunker shot to seal his U.S. Open victory at Pinehurst.
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After the drama and pleasure of the U.S. Open over the weekend, you would possibly suppose that Bryson DeChambeau would want to take a number of days to decompress. As an alternative, he’s busier than ever. After a whirlwind media tour in New York Metropolis, DeChambeau was again to his day job on Wednesday, making ready for this week’s LIV Golf Nashville.
“I’ve been operating on in all probability a cumulative complete previously three days, like perhaps 12 hours of sleep, perhaps,” DeChambeau mentioned at his pre-tournament press convention. “You guys are the explanation why I preserve going. It’s been unbelievable.”
DeChambeau lined quite a lot of floor in his interview, which included questions on how he balances content material creation with apply, his ideas about lacking out on the Olympics for a second time and what it’s wish to be a task mannequin for younger gamers. However for followers hoping to glean one thing from the two-time main champion’s on-course technique at Pinehurst, he additionally went deep on his U.S. Open-winning bunker shot.
“As a lot as I’m a really mechanical, methodical individual, there’s an artistry to me that not too many individuals know however I hope they’re beginning to see,” DeChambeau started. “And that 60-yard bunker shot, no matter it was, once I acquired up there, the one factor that gave me quite a lot of consolation was G-Bo telling me, Bryson, I’ve seen you hit far more tough pictures than this. You’ve acquired this. I stepped in there and executed it.
“I wished a tap-in, nevertheless it acquired as much as 4 toes, and I used to be able to go nuts, and you could possibly see me sort of get after it with G-Bo saying, ‘let’s go.’ That was so huge. However I knew I had a four-footer to make. It wasn’t only a tap-in.”
As for what made the bunker shot so laborious? DeChambeau mentioned it was the precision required at influence.
“From a technicality standpoint, you possibly can’t miss it a millimeter behind the ball or a millimeter too near the ball,” he mentioned. “From 60 yards with an open face, it’s an explosion shot, and in case you catch it just a bit skinny, I’m hitting it into that clubhouse. There isn’t a room for error. Very, little or no room for error. For it to even go that far out of a bunker takes a fairly darned good quantity of power.
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“If I chunked it, too, it’s quick, hits the entrance edge and comes proper again down. Now I’m making an attempt to get up-and-down simply to get right into a playoff. The issue was by the roof, and it’s one thing that I by no means want anybody to have, to have that have. However in a U.S. Open, the hardest check in golf, you get offered that, you’ve simply acquired to go full pressure into it and simply embrace it and say, look, that is what the sport of golf has given me, I’ve practiced this earlier than. You’ve simply acquired to execute it.
“However the problem stage was by the roof,” he continued. “I knew how exact I wanted to be. I keep in mind wanting down on the bunker and seeing only a small sliver of shiny sand about an inch and a half behind the ball, and I used to be like, simply go proper by that space, and that’s all I considered. I knew how a lot vitality to provide it based mostly on how I used to be swinging it, and I hit it simply flawlessly. When it got here out, my eyes popped up, they widened, and I’m like, that’s excellent, and it landed excellent, and it ran out, and I’m like, ‘let’s go.’ That was huge. It provides me chills enthusiastic about that.
“The issue was by the roof. I can’t clarify, except any person experiences that for themselves, I can’t clarify how tough it actually was.”
One other issue that DeChambeau mentioned benefited him at Pinehurst? Dialing in his wedge specs.
“I discovered what bounce works completely for me,” he mentioned. “I virtually haven’t any bounce on my wedge, nevertheless it has a wider sole, and that was an enormous factor for me. I actually constructed it, I believe, about lower than a month in the past, so my wedge recreation has simply gotten actually good lately due to that grind.”
DeChambeau will hope to proceed his main momentum in Nashville. He tees off alongside Carlos Ortiz and Jon Rahm at 12:15 p.m. on Friday.
