With the sun setting on Pinehurst No. 2 in North Carolina, the practice tee beckoned for Bryson DeChambeau, who was leading the U.S. Open but needed some fine-tuning before one of the biggest days of his professional life.
Always a tinkerer, DeChambeau wanted to dial in his driver and other aspects of his game as Saturday darkness loomed. In fact, he would have an issue with his biggest club the next day while warming up for the final round: after deciding that the clubhead had become a tad too flat from all the repeated use, DeChambeau replaced the titanium head literally minutes before his afternoon tee time.
But now, on the evening prior, he was doing his post-round media interviews and time was winding down. With an eye on the nearest exit, my SI colleague Dan Evans asked one last question, and a rather bizarre one given the circumstances.
The condensed query: can you explain why you float golf balls in Epsom salt?
What?
DeChambeau didn’t flinch. A big smile came across his face. It was almost as if he was invited to a high school chemistry class to share his theory.
“Thanks for the salty balls question, I appreciate that,’’ DeChambeau said to laughter, with a video of the exchange going viral.
DeChambeau was clearly pleased with his sophomoric comment but more so excited to explain the reasons for the unusual procedure he often employs.
The practice tee could wait a few more minutes.
“Essentially we float golf balls in a solution to make sure that the golf ball is not out of balance,’’ he said, before going on to explain the process.
It’s not as crazy as it sounds, although the need for doing so is pretty remote in this day of highly advanced technology with all manner of equipment. But the late Arnold Palmer in the 1950s and 60s carried with him a ring for a similar purpose.
He would place golf balls within the ring to make sure they were round. Many times they were not, and Palmer would discard the flawed golf ball or use it for practice.
Such is rarely the case today, but DeChambeau isn’t taking chances.
“There was a big thing back in the day where golf balls are out of balance, and it's just because of the manufacturing process,” he said. “There's always going to be an error, especially when it's a sphere and there's dimples on the edges. You can't perfectly get it in the center.
“So what I'm doing is finding pretty much the out-of-balance-ness of it, how much out of balance it is. Heavy side floats to the bottom, and then we mark the top with a dot to make sure it's always rolling over itself.”
DeChambeau acknowledged that this is not an issue with most golf balls he tests but “it’s one more step that I do to make sure my golf ball flies as straight as it possibly can fly because I'm not that great at hitting it that straight.”
And then he was off, finding far too few fairways the following day but prevailing in a dramatic final round showdown, with Rory McIlroy agonizingly missing two key putts over the closing three holes while DeChambeau saved par with a 55-yard bunker shot and a nerve-wracking putt.
Flipping the switch on popularity
The victory gave DeChambeau, 31, a second U.S. Open to go with the one he captured in 2020 but also confirmed an ascendant popularity switch that saw him go from one of golf’s bad boys to the top of the game.
Heading into last year’s majors, DeChambeau made a point to be a competitive force while also shedding the negative stigma attached to his controversial move to the LIV Golf League in the summer of 2022. He would contend at the first three majors.
He held the first-round lead at the Masters en route to a tie for sixth, finished second at the PGA Championship after forcing Xander Schauffele to hole his own final-hole birdie putt to beat him, and then prevailed over McIlroy in the North Carolina sandhills.
It was quite the turnaround from the “Beefy Bryson” days, when the golfer consumed enough calories in a day to satisfy most people’s cravings over a week while also going on a muscle-building binge that saw him gain more than 50 pounds.
DeChambeau emerged from some bleak times—getting back to a more modest weight, overcoming several injuries, weathering the LIV Golf League negativity—to become one of the biggest stories in golf.
Not only did he win another major, but he created a popular crossover alternative with his YouTube channel which has more than 1.8 million subscribers and is approaching 200 videos.
Recently, he bought a set of random clubs via Temu and played a round with them—shooting 42 for nine holes. There have been episodes where he and a celebrity partner attempt to break 50 for nine holes from the forward tees. One of them with former NFL quarterback Tony Romo had more than 2 million views. He has episodes where he tries to break the course record at a random facility.
And in perhaps his most popular endeavor, he last year had an ongoing quest to hit a 105-yard wedge shot over his glass-covered Dallas home to a backyard putting green in an attempt to make a hole in one. On Day 16—having taken one extra shot per day after Day 1—he finally made the ace, sending him into a euphoria exceeded only by his major championship wins.
The concept is so important to DeChambeau that he invests considerable time and resources into the endeavor. “We’re here to educate and entertain,’’ he says, noting that he has hired eight people who work directly on his YouTube projects.
“We’re looking to grow that, bring on more content people,” DeChambeau says during an interview in Dallas. “There was a lot of conversation in the past where I was presented in a light that was not me. I’m human. I get frustrated. Things happen. I make mistakes. But that’s not me.
“I’ve changed and grown over the course of time. Developing this has been a four-year process, a long process but one I believe wholeheartedly is in the best interest of not only myself but for the game of golf. I can’t wait as we unveil this over the next couple of years.”
It's Not an Act
For those familiar with DeChambeau's backstory, the “salty balls” tale should not have come as a surprise. DeChambeau is built different and his “mad scientist” persona did not come haphazardly.
Last August, DeChambeau was at a promotional event for LIV Golf’s season-ending tournament at Maridoe Golf Club in Carrollton, Texas. Among those at the outing was Albert Huddleston, a Dallas billionaire and owner of the club.
When DeChambeau was a star golfer at SMU in Dallas a decade ago, he met Huddleston, who flew the team via private jet to an event in Florida. As the players practiced on the putting green, Huddleston noticed a blue chalk line. “Who put an azimuth on the putting green?’’ he said, according to the Dallas Morning News.
DeChambeau, a physics major, was surprised to learn that Huddleston knew anything about an azimuth, which is a “horizontal direction expressed as the angular distance between the direction of a fixed point and the direction of the object.”
That is the kind of language that DeChambeau revels in. A natural bond was formed, despite a four-decade difference in age. A few months later, DeChambeau, a junior, won the 2015 NCAA individual title and the U.S. Amateur, becoming only the fifth player to do so in the same year—joining Jack Nicklaus, Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods and Ryan Moore.
Huddleston loved the fact that the quirky DeChambeau had single-length irons (37.5 inches from the 5-iron through pitching wedge) and eventually sponsored him for a few years when the golfer turned pro in 2016.
The unique irons remain among the most prominent of DeChambeau’s quirks, but not the only one. He would later employ a 3D-motion application operator to gather data from all of his practice swings. Or explain the Vector green reading method. He used a compass during tournament rounds before the practice was banned.
DeChambeau has what he believes is a simple explanation for all of this.
“The talent is always there,” he says. “I could go play with Wal-Mart clubs and shoot even par [well, his YouTube video might disprove that]. I do that on my YouTube Channel all the time and have fun doing it. But in order for me to feel confident in the most intense pressure situations, I want to make sure I’m driving the fastest, best car out there. Best aerodynamics, best engine, you name it.
“That’s what personally I want to have out there on the course. As much as I say the equipment, the equipment, there is still a talent component and skill set component I respect. But I’m at the level and thought process of how do I get that extra .0001% and confidence so I hit one more fairway a round or make one more putt.”
Another unlikely ally early on in DeChambeau’s pro career was Woods. DeChambeau won his first PGA Tour event at the 2017 John Deere Classic but it was the following year when he found his way into Woods’ orbit as then 14-time major champion was returning from spinal fusion surgery.
It was an odd friendship, one that became strained when DeChambeau left the PGA Tour to join LIV Golf. It evolved out of sheer brazenness, when Woods had the world staring at his every move in January 2018 as he returned to competitive golf for the first time in a year.
And there was DeChambeau to muscle his way inside the ropes and go along for the ride.
Numerous times throughout that year, DeChambeau was there during Woods’s practice rounds, tagging along and chatting up the legend on fairways from San Diego to Charlotte to Sawgrass and to Carnoustie. Bryson, with his single-length irons, and Tiger, who could not have a more traditional 14-club setup.
That DeChambeau somehow maneuvered into Woods’s world to become a frequent practice round partner was a subject of both amazement and bemusement.
“I don’t know; that’s kind of one of the weird ones, yeah,” Woods said later that year. “It kind of just happened. It just kind of evolved.’’
Woods’s influence rubbed off in some ways. DeChambeau won Jack Nicklaus’s Memorial Tournament that year. He also won back-to-back FedEx Cup playoff events at the Northern Trust and Dell Technologies Championship, leading to a Ryder Cup captain’s pick.
At the Ryder Cup in 2018, Woods had an unsuccessful partnership with DeChambeau, as part of an overall U.S. defeat to Europe in France.
DeChambeau didn’t win again for more than a year and it was around that time that he began to drop hints about his impending weight-gain plan.
The added muscle and subsequent swing speed saw DeChambeau hitting his tee shots farther than anyone on Tour. The added distance and awe it inspired became intoxicating.
DeChambeau worked with an NFL trainer named Greg Roskopf who embarked on a three-year process that saw the golfer max out at 240 pounds.
“It was a lot of fun because I didn’t care,” DeChambeau says about the ability to eat in massive quantities. “And then you realize you have to care because it starts to bite you in the butt.”
DeChambeau won the Arnold Palmer Invitational in the spring of 2021, famously attempting to drive over water as close as possible to a par-5 green on both weekend days and outlasting Lee Westwood down the stretch. The following week he contended at the Players Championship, tying for third. Fans loved the mammoth drives and he lapped up the interest.
But there was considerable noise that surrounded him. Remember the “feud” with Brooks Koepka? It seems quaint now, but that was a weekly point of discussion in those days. “We have a level of respect now that we didn’t then,” DeChambeau says.
“I think it’s kind of funny,’’ Koepka says. “I didn’t care to get to know him. He’s obviously very different than I am. But sometimes when you’re so different you find you are actually more alike than you think. He’s really just a nice kid who means well … I had fun with it. I enjoy trolling, getting trolled.”
But 2021 proved to be difficult for DeChambeau. He split with his caddie just before the British Open. He was highly critical of his equipment company and endorser at the same tournament. He tested positive for COVID-19, thus missing the Olympics in Tokyo. He had a couple of top 10s in the FedEx Cup playoffs, including an excruciating playoff loss to Patrick Cantlay.
And the weight gain and all that came with it was starting to bother him into 2022.
“I had a blood test which showed three times the risk of a heart attack,’’ he says. “And I was like I’ve got to stop, I’ve got to change, I’ve got to pivot. So I pivoted. I figured out what was inflaming me. I got a chef that started cooking food relative to my sensitivities and I started decreasing my inflammation and started going in a super positive direction. It wasn’t through drugs or any prescriptions. It was literally through food.”
It couldn’t prevent injuries that derailed him in 2022. DeChambeau had a hip problem as well as a hand injury, one that was extremely painful, caused bad habits in his golf swing and eventually led to surgery.
Around that time is when the LIV Golf rumors began to circulate, and DeChambeau admitted that he wondered about his future in the game.
It was right after the Masters, where he missed the cut in 2022. “I knew I was going to have hand surgery. Knew I was going to be out eight weeks. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to play golf the same way. Going in and doing surgery. You just don’t know,” he says. “You can come out and my wrist just isn’t the same anymore. I’m not swinging the same. I was very nervous.”
DeChambeau signed with LIV Golf after tying for 56th at the U.S. Open, joining the circuit for its second event. The mood in the game at the time was extremely tense. Although he tied for eighth at the British Open at St. Andrews, he did little on LIV for the rest of the season.
It wasn’t until later into 2023 that an equipment change led to success, including shooting 58 at the Greenbrier on his way to his first LIV victory. Naturally, feeling good about the tools of his trade, a obsession-like quality, drove him. Especially as it relates to his driver.
Called the Krank Formula Fire LD, DeChambeau all but puts on the laboratory coat when discussing how he believes his entire game improved.
“Once I got that Krank driver in play … that driver head is still the perfect head for me,’’ he says. “And the other heads are really close but not exactly that same (score from the Greenbrier tournament) 58 head. And every time I go back to that 58 head, it’s perfect. We’re still working on what exactly it was to make that club exactly perfect for me. It could be where the face is curved in certain areas. I don’t want to use it because I don’t want to change what it’s doing. Because if you hit it too much, it’ll flatten. We’ve kept that as a gold standard for me to try and understand all the ins and outs of it.
“Long story short, I knew once that happened I knew I could contend in every single major because my driver was going to be perfect. Not perfect. But good enough to do it. Consequently, I played well at the Masters, played well at the PGA and played obviously well at the U.S. Open where it all culminated.
“And at the Open Championship (where he missed the cut in July) I wasn’t hitting it the way I wanted to and consequently with a bit of a bad draw, not making any putts and that’s what a major championship does to you. That’s why what Xander did in the majors (winning two of them) was incredibly impressive.”
The driver DeChambeau referenced was unveiled last week, one that has face ID technology and is in partnership with LA Golf. “I have been on a decade-long journey to solve every possible variable with my equipment,” DeChambeau said in a statement.
Bryson's Right-Hand Man
DeChambeau also gives credit to his caddie for the turnaround. Greg Bodine came on board prior to the 2023 PGA Championship. The two had never worked together, and Bodine was “retired” from caddying, having worked for Tony Finau among others. Bodine had started a business in his home state of Washington when DeChambeau called. Bodine was intrigued.
His Evergreen Golf Club, an indoor facility in Redmond, Wash., was off the ground. And Bodine, despite young children, figured he had some time to see how this might go.
“I’m a flatliner,” Bodine says. “Obviously at the U.S. Open or the PGA, my blood pressure will rise and I’ll feel the moment of the situation. But I’m pretty good at keeping golf and caddying in its own bubble and having a good perspective on life. He’s the one hitting the shots, but he’ll mention that my demeanor will rub off on him a bit. And even a few percent can make a difference.
“He’s very intense and on edge. I’m on the flip side where people wonder if I even care. I have a 5 and 7 year old at home and life is chaos. I’ve started up two businesses up here. So I’m used to juggling a lot. We are very different, but we enjoy each other’s company. And a huge thing, in my opinion, with caddying is the common denominator is good people, easy to talk to. A guy like Ted Scott (who caddies for Scottie Scheffler), Paul Tesori (Tom Kim) … those are guys who for the most part everyone loves and gets along with well.
“I realized early on with caddying that’s a big part of it. You’re spending seven or eight hours a day with a person and it’s under extremely stressful circumstances. With Bryson, I’ve found a good groove. I know I annoy him at times. But I just try to be really good company. That’s what makes it work well.”
Staying calm was imperative in the time leading up to that final-round tee time at Pinehurst.
With less than 15 minutes to go, DeChambeau discovered an issue with the face of his driver. He took out a level (yes, he keeps one in his bag) and started measuring and realized that the curved face had been flattened. It was nothing new, but this was an obviously inopportune time.
The emergency hardly fazed him. DeChambeau swapped out another driver head, and when he didn’t like that one, he swapped yet another. He hit a few more practice shots with it on the range and put the club back in his golf bag before heading to the first tee.
Bodine says DeChambeau goes through so many driver heads over the course of a year—mostly due to bashing so many balls—that it was almost routine. “I’d say in the (first) 12 months from when he started using that driver, that’s 18 tournaments, he went through 15 different heads,” Bodine says. “It’s not like the normal person if their driver cracked. Bryson is used to it. And I’m talking about just playing tournaments. He’s probably hit 40 to 50 different heads just through testing.”
A month earlier, DeChambeau had established himself as the People’s Champ with his close call against Schauffele, shooting the lowest 72-hole score by a non-winner in PGA Championship history and captivating the crowd and television viewers along the way.
In defeat, DeChambeau was headed out to the 18th green to congratulate Schauffele on his first major victory, a move which garnered him considerable appreciation after all the tumult of the past few years. He didn’t get the same treatment in the aftermath from McIlroy, who left the premises abruptly—and, to many, understandably—in the moments after DeChambeau holed his winning putt. It was a crushing loss for the four-time major champion.
“Whatever way people want to perceive that they can perceive that,” DeChambeau says. “I have too much respect for Rory. We’ve competed over the years now in different settings. He’s a fierce competitor. He hasn’t won a major in a while and so I can empathize with him being frustrated and disappointed.
“At the same point in time, I went out and shook Xander’s hand. You can interpret that however you want to interpret that. I saw him (McIlroy) at the Open and he congratulated me. I met up but there were no issues. He was very respectful and I appreciate that.’’
DeChambeau has watched the final round and called it “great theater” while lamenting his own mistakes that put him in peril. He wasn’t driving the ball well that day—he hit only five fairways—and felt for a time the tournament was slipping away.
“I said that to G-Bo on the 12th tee and he was like, ‘Bryson, you have so many holes left. Focus on this shot to the best of your ability.’ I made bogey on 12 but the 13th the par-4 I had a 3-wood specifically for that hole and he said, “This is your time.” I hit it on the green and I didn’t know that Rory had duck-hooked it into the trees. As it played out, I didn’t know and the back and forth, the misses and makes we both had … it was cool to experience it live but also to watch it.”
DeChambeau reveled in the victory, signing autographs and posing for photos for seemingly hours. He headed back out to the 18th hole to recreate the bunker shot in the dark for Golf Channel’s live broadcast and didn’t leave the premises until late.
The following week, he received a hero’s welcome at LIV Golf’s event in Nashville, Tenn., and has welcomed and embraced the attention. If there is something that bugs him, it’s his lack of LIV Golf success. He had seven top-10 finishes in 2024 but no victories a year after winning twice.
This year, he has two top-10s in four LIV Golf starts but has not contended with the LIV Golf Miami event taking place this week prior to heading to the Masters.
It was fair to wonder last year if some fatigue set in. DeChambeau was determined to be a factor in the major championships, and like last year, he visited Augusta National on a January scouting trip. He’s put considerable effort into building his Crushers LIV team and is fully committed to the league and its future. He’s been outspoken about getting the men’s professional game back together. And then there’s the YouTube channel, which only continues to grow and take up his time.
“I’ve got to get a lot of things organized ... so I can solely focus on golf and getting better,” DeChambeau says. “That’s what it will be as well as delegating things to certain individuals. And I don’t want to bring in people who create more problems. Someone I delegate and move forward. That sort of stuff is what I’m looking for. That is part the process we need to go through.
“Delegating is the most important thing now for me. I can’t do it all. Nor do I want. I want to have a life as well.”
Undoubtedly, there will be some time carved out for more tinkering, the ultimate trait that makes DeChambeau tick.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Bryson DeChambeau Is Comfortable in His Own Skin Again, Just in Time for Augusta.