Bryson DeChambeau closing out amateur career at Masters

His former college golf coach calls him a rock star. Others have said he’s the most interesting player in golf.

That’s because Bryson DeCham­beau, who will be playing his last event as an amateur at the Masters before turning pro the following week, has both talent and an unusual way of playing the game.

How unusual? All his irons are the same length.

DeChambeau, who won the NCAA individual title last season as a junior at Southern Methodist Uni­ver­sity and then the U.S. Ama­teur on his way to becoming the world’s No. 1-ranked amateur, started experimenting with using the same-length irons when he was 15, said Josh Gregory, his first golf coach at SMU.

DeChambeau, working exclusively with swing coach Mike Schy, uses the idea of a single swing along with information gained from Homer Kelley’s 1969 self-published instructional book, The Golfing Machine: The Computer Age Approach to Golf Perfection, and applies it to his Edel Golf irons.

“They are all the same length, same lie angle, same shaft,” De­Cham­beau said. “Just different loft. Same bounce configuration as well, on each and every one of them. But it’s all 4 degrees of loft difference, mainly, on average. It works pretty well. It helps me keep my same posture, same setup, same everything.

“It’s a long story but to keep it short, I pretty much chose this variation on the Golfing Machine where it allowed me 20 swings on the same plane and when I did that, I realized I couldn’t do that with a wedge and 3-iron, I would be changing body motions.

“And I said, ‘That doesn’t make sense.’ I said, ‘Let’s make them on the same lie angle and same length.’ My coach said, ‘That’s an easy one to ask, a tough one to answer.’ We’ve been on this journey and it’s been a great process and learning process for me. I’ve learned a lot. I think it’s definitely helped me, It’s suited me pretty well and I’ve done pretty well with it.”

DeChambeau was Gregory’s first recruit when he took the job at his alma mater in June 2011, where he was trying to rebuild the program after winning consecutive Division I
national titles at Augusta State. De­Chambeau bypassed more prominent golf schools because of Gregory’s openness to his approach to the game.

“He told me, ‘Coach, you were the only one who allowed me to be me.’ That spoke volumes to how much he believed in himself,” said Gregory, who resigned at SMU in August 2014 amid alleged rules violations and is now the golf instructor for Patrick Reed, who played for him at Augusta State. “Bryson shot 68 every day and had a 4.0 in the classroom. Who was I to tell him he’s wrong?”

DeChambeau left SMU after his junior season last year and decided to remain an amateur and tee it up as “an intern as an amateur playing professional events” to tune up for the Masters. In late November, he tied for second place in the Australian Masters, closing with 4-under-par 67. In mid-January he played in the European Tour’s three tournament “desert swing,” calling himself “an intern as an amateur playing professional events.”

On the swing, he tied for 54th in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Cham­pion­ship, was 18th in the Dubai Desert Classic and 67th in the Qatar Masters. Not only did he make the cut in every event but he also was the first-round co-leader in Abu Dhabi, with 64.

The way he played made him a popular interview.

“He welcomes the attention,” Gre­gory said. “He’s from a small town in California, and it’s fascinating to him. Now all of a sudden he’s become a rock star because of the way he approaches golf. Over time, he’s going to be known as one of the best players out there, not as a novelty or a freak show.”

DeChambeau said he doesn’t mind the media attention.

“I just like being different, I guess, and if people say that I’m that, then it’s fun,” he said. “I guess it’s cool.”

Because of his talent and his playing in a handful of pro events before the Masters – including the PGA Tour’s Arnold Palmer Invitational in mid-March – Gregory thinks his former player “will do great” in the Masters.

“Clearly the Masters will have a different level of pressure,” Gregory said. “There is so much to learn about the greens. That will be his biggest learning curve.”