Bryson DeChambeau has pushed the limits of golf with his quest for greater distance off the tee.
Therefore, the game’s “mad scientist” is flattered that the rule makers are proposing changes to regulations in an effort to control how far big hitters like him can throw a golf ball.
“I think I’m pushing a little bit,” said a smiling DeChambeau on Wednesday. “I don’t know if anyone put pressure on them like that – and I’m not really trying to force it … I think I’m willing to try things that people don’t agree to try.
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“When you go over the limits of the rules,” he added, “there will be talk about it, for sure.”
USGA and R&A on Tuesday announced three proposals and six areas of interest involving modern gaming. This is a year after the Distance Insights Project revealed a steady increase in distance for more than 100 years – with average gains of about 30 yards by PGA Tour players over the past 25 years – and golf courses that continue to expand.
Rory McIlroy, speaking at the Phoenix Open, said the governing bodies are looking at the game through “tiny lenses”.
“What they’re trying to do is change something that belongs to 0.1% of the golf community; 99.9% of people play this game for fun, for entertainment. They don’t need to be told what ball or clubs to use,” Said McIlroy. “We have to make the game as easy and accessible as possible for most players.”
McIlroy said he thought the remote project was “a huge waste of time and money”.
“Because the money it took to make this report could have been better distributed to put people in the game, introducing the game to children, introducing the game to minorities,” he said.
With the intention of not targeting factors related to the player, such as improved athletic ability, the governing bodies are instead looking more closely at golf equipment while looking for solutions to limit distances.
Among the possibilities is a local rule that could limit the length of the shaft to no more than 46 inches, below 48 inches. DeChambeau was testing a 48-inch driver, although he has not yet used it in competitions.
“It’s funny, I’m sure there is a lot of excitement about having a potentially controversial thought about it, but no,” said DeChambeau, speaking in a video call from Saudi Arabia, where he is competing at Saudi International on the European Tour starting on Thursday . “I think it’s a very cool thought process. It’s a bit flattering, in a sense, because I talked about that 48-inch driver for a long time and it just didn’t work for me the way I wanted to.
“As it unfolds, I think it’s very good to see that there has been a change in the conversations I’ve had.”
The American added more than 18 kilos of muscle and mass last year – through changes in his diet and hard work at the gym – to allow him to dominate the golf courses, as he did when he won his first major tournament, a six- took the victory at the United States Open on Winged Foot in September.
For him, the most important thing is that the proposed rule changes do not remove the “human element”.
“It’s about making sure that you’re playing with the relative integrity of yesteryear,” he said. “People haven’t used 48-inch rods in a long time and therefore are really trying to make them look like they used to be, although they have a modern feel, obviously with graphite rods and everything.”
McIlroy said he would not object to a local rule that would apply at the elite level to limit technology, or what he said would be “some kind of bifurcation”.
“But we are a small portion of golf,” he said. “Golf is much bigger than the professional game. It’s the other things that really matter, and that’s what they need to focus on.”
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DeChambeau spoke to another technology – his oxygen intake.
The champion of the United States Open was the favorite to win the Masters in November, but fell after complaining of dizziness and something wrong with his stomach.
After doing many tests, he said it was discovered that he “was not using enough oxygen when he entered my system” and that storing too much carbon dioxide was constricting his blood vessels.
DeChambeau said he is learning breathing techniques.
“I have an oxygen machine and I have been working to control my breathing every night before going to bed and in the morning when I wake up,” he said. “It doesn’t scare me at all, since I know what’s going on. I will monitor it continuously.”