Bryson DeChambeau will be gearing his strength training and equipment testing towards the final Major of the year, the Masters Tournament, which tees off on November 12-15.
In fact, the reigning US Open champion does not intend to play any tournaments at all as he seeks out a way to dissect and destroy the revered Augusta National layout – just as he did with Winged Foot last month for his maiden Major victory, a dominating six-shot win over Matthew Wolff. The 27-year-old shocked the golf world with his heavily bulked-up physique and huge distance gains when the PGA Tour resumed in June after a three-month break due to Covid-19, winning twice and dominating the driving stats.
Following a T8 finish in his last start at The Shriners Hospitals for Children Open two weekends ago, DeChambeau noted that he hoped to get his weight up to 245 lbs from the current 240.
“I’m going to be working out like crazy. This first week back home, I’m not really going to touch a club too much and going to be training pretty hard and getting myself up to hopefully around 245, something like that, in weight. It’ll be the first time I’ve ever done that, so I’m going to be consuming a lot and working out a lot and see what can go from there,” said DeChambeau, adding that he felt he only had his B game at TPC Summerlin for The Shriners event.
With his driving distance 30 yards-plus more than when he last played Augusta National in April 2019, DeChambeau noted that the course will play differently for him except for a few holes.
“Well, No 1 may be different … I don’t know, just depends on the wind conditions. Obviously, I would say No 2 is different, 3 is different, 5’s different, 7 will be different, 8 will be different, 9 will be different. 11 will be different, 13 will be different, 14 will be different, 15 will be different, 17 will be different, 18 will definitely be different,” he said.
A large part of DeChambeau’s Masters run-up will involve testing new equipment and configurations with sponsor Cobra, including a 48-inch driver.
“I still got some equipment stuff coming in the next two months and that’s mainly why I’m taking it off. I feel like the advantages that I usually have could be much improved upon with the equipment … we don’t have it yet, but we’re diligently working on it behind the scenes,” shared DeChambeau.
“I’ll have that in a couple weeks, we’ll prototype and test it and see if it works. If it doesn’t, we’ll go back and tool it and hopefully have it ready for Augusta.”
DeChambeau added that he might hit up to 2,000 drives over four weeks to further increase his swing speed. “From a speed training perspective, I could probably go upwards a thousand to probably two thousand, around two thousand drives, the next four weeks trying to get my speed up.
The man they call ‘The Scientist’ for his analytical approach to the game noted that he is on a quest for perfection. “I never will reach it, I totally submit to that. But I do want to try and find distinct advantages that allow me to be better and better each and every time I play.
“Clearly it’s helped, I think there’s been a big change this year and I’m not going to stop.”
