Orlando, Florida. – Arnold Palmer may have given Bryson DeChambeau some curious looks. He may have wondered about DeChambeau’s unique length irons and the wild diet and all the science talk. Certainly, he would have mocked the Ben Hogan cap.
But the last namesake of the DeChambeau tournament, won on Sunday at Palmer’s beloved Bay Hill Club, would undoubtedly have given his backing to the way the current US Open champion is playing the game.
Palmer would have loved the bravado. He would have loved the muscular strength. He would have loved the boldness.
DeChambeau paved the way for victory on Sunday, opening the first sizable gallery of the pandemic era, launching tee shots in orbit. So he went and found them. And he gave enough putts to hold 47-year-old Lee Westwood on the Arnold Palmer Invitational for his eighth PGA Tour victory.
Palmer, the seven-time champion who has made Bay Hill his home since falling in love with the place in the 1960s, has been known to break once or twice. He loved the power game and scoffed at those who thought he should control it. He was the first to admit that some tournaments escaped because his boldness won out. But he never apologized.
Now, here is DeChambeau trying to drive a par 5 over the water – Arnie may have moved those tees back – and continues to mesmerize the golf world about how he has transformed his game and his body over the past 18 months.
“It’s great to watch,” said Westwood, who turns 48 next month and is 20 years older than DeChambeau. “I like it. You can see his shape. He worked hard at the gym, and he worked on his technique to hit a long road. It’s not easy to hit as straight as he hits as much as he does. So people will have advantages – and his is obviously long. He can dominate a golf course. It’s fun to watch. ”
Westwood, who has 24 European Tour wins and more than 40 professional wins, could only have fun at the sixth hole, a 555-yard par five designed to play around a large lake.
DeChambeau has been talking for weeks about trying to drive on the green, a shot that would require a 330-yard payload or something like that. On Saturday, DeChambeau celebrated as if he had won the tournament by clearing the water. It doesn’t matter if he missed the green about 70 meters to the right. His ball traveled 370 yards.
On Sunday, the trip reached 377 yards in a bunker. In the two days, DeChambeau made a little bird.
When it was Westwood’s turn to get it right, television cameras were not set up to track his movement; it was pointed too far to the right, the way the hole should be played. Westwood had a mock celebration after his path found the golf course.
“Just having a little fun with it, you know?” Westwood said. “I think it was there around 310 – just 70 or 80 behind it, wasn’t it?
DeChambeau’s 1-under 71 was one of two scores below par among the top 70 on a cold and stormy day. It helped him win a tournament he had hoped to win since he met Palmer here, when DeChambeau was still an amateur.
It was during this meeting that Palmer gave DeChambeau advice: Sign an autograph in a legible way so people can read it.
“This is something that stayed with me, and I have been doing it ever since,” he said.
Palmer, who landed the first green in the final round of the 1960 United States Open in Cherry Hills and made a birdie in his only win in that major championship, would be delighted with DeChambeau’s six-shot Winged Foot win in September.
After this breakthrough, however, DeChambeau has struggled. He joined Masters in November as a favorite; he was never a factor and tied for 34th. This was not an outlier. He hasn’t fought since winning the United States Open at Winged Foot. Last week, at the WGC-Workday Championship at The Concession, he opened with 77.
But the search continues. DeChambeau experimented with more drive axles, rotation rates and optimal launch angles. Although the goal was to increase the weight, he believed that he had become too fat; so he tried to reduce the volume of food and eat a little healthier.
Still, he plans to take the same approach at Augusta National next month: hit hard, hit far. Being closer to the green has its advantages. Putting the ball in the hole there is the key to success.
In his early days playing against the Masters, Palmer was told that his low ball flight would not be successful. He remained stubborn and played his game. He won four green jackets. Palmer wasn’t going to back off just because someone said he should.
This week, DeChambeau had a chat with Palmer’s grandson and Korn Ferry Tour pro Sam Saunders. This discussion made DeChambeau believe that the king would have approved of his approach.
“Sometimes I get in trouble with the extension and where I hit it,” said DeChambeau. “But I would say that Palmer would probably like it. Sam told me a lot about how he thought Mr. Palmer would love what I was doing. “