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AUGUSTA, GA – Bryson DeChambeau finally located his tee shot in the pine straw to the left of the fairway on the 14th hole at Augusta National on Thursday.
Brawny Bryson turned his head and didn’t ask anyone in particular, “That obviously grabbed a tree, didn’t it?”
Yes, that one and many other DeChambeau tee shots found wood or something besides fairways in the first round of the Masters.
DeChambeau, the betting favorite at the first Masters ever played in November, couldn’t keep his ball in the fairway and didn’t do much better on the greens.
His mad rush through the first 18 holes, which included back-to-back birdies on the last two holes to apply ointment to his injuries, led to a score of 2 under 70 in the first round.
The disappointing start certainly didn’t put him out of action with 54 holes to go, but it wasn’t exactly what he had in mind. Especially not after suggesting earlier this week that he plans to set himself a normal course of 67 – five strokes below the actual 72 – because his newly found length off the tee would allow him to hit each of the par 5s in two. blows. .
A day after Augusta National President Fred Ridley said the sport was “at a crossroads when it comes to distance,” DeChambeau’s booming and violent workouts were not as much of a benefit as he and others might have believed.
“This golf course, as much as I try to attack it, you know it can bite,” DeChambeau said. “It’s still Augusta National and it’s still the Masters. It’s an incredible test of golf no matter how you play it.”
After a three hour delay due to inclement weather, which dumped about two inches of rain on the course, DeChambeau actually started conservatively, hitting a 3 wood on the 10th tee, his first hole of the day. He hit his second shot about six feet past the hole, but then missed a downhill slider for birdie and settled for par.
There were warning signs right from the 11th par 4, when he fired his tee shot into the woods on the left side of the fairway. He found his ball and scrambled to save par with a 13-footer.
After a par in the 12th, his aggressive plan backfired. On par 5 13th, he bounced his tee shot high up a tree and into the pine straw on the right side. For a few moments, DeChambeau debated whether to fold and play for a birdie – or try to reach the green from 194 yards in the hope of an eagle.
His ball lay near the same spot from which Phil Mickelson hit his ball on the green on the final round in 2010 en route to winning a third green jacket.
It didn’t go so well for DeChambeau, who fired his shot to the left and into the azaleas above the bunkers protecting the green. Worse yet, he hit a provisional shot – in case they couldn’t find the ball on the first shot – and knocked it over in a flowing tributary of Rae’s Creek.
DeChambeau was fortunate that his younger son, Tim Tucker, found his first bullet buried in the azaleas. He was forced to take a drop for an unplayable lie, failed to get up and down, and settled for a double bogey.
“At the end of the day, I should have been smarter and taken my meds,” he says. “I’m greedy. Sometimes I get a little greedy, and I like to take risks. You have to take risks to win tournaments.”
For a long time on Thursday it looked like DeChambeau’s assault was going to cost him any chance of winning back-to-back major championships, having won the US Open by six shots in September.
After flirting with the idea of using a 48 inch driver, the longest allowed by the rules of golf, he stuck with the 45 ½ inch version. He had enough trouble with the shorter one. He averaged 334.6 yards off the tee, but found only eight of 14 fairways.
“Not great, not my best,” DeChambeau said of his driving. “I have a little, I guess you could say, tight. I was not comfortable with my golf swing. Normally, when I’m really comfortable with my golf swing, I can keep going faster and faster. I just have to figure out what’s going on, why I’m a little too far away. “
There were still a few moments that turned Brawny Bryson’s head. After hitting a 346-yard drive on the 15th par 5, 530 yards, he hit a 7 iron to the green. Playing partner Louis Oosthuizen joked that they both use 7 clubs; the South African was a 7 wood.
On the 495-yard par-4 fifth hole, DeChambeau crushed a 347-yard drive down the fairway. His ball ended up nearly 90 yards farther than the tee shot by five-time Masters champion Tiger Woods a few groups later.
“Luckily for us it wasn’t very direct in the opening holes,” said Spaniard Jon Rahm, who also played with DeChambeau. “The trees were stopping his balls, and he was kind of on a par with us. There were a few that were reality checks.”
Rahm, who shot 3 under 69, credited DeChambeau’s short play and scrambling ability for saving his round.
“It’s a different golf course, but I think [Thursday] proves that no matter how far you hit it you still have to putts, ”said Rahm.
If you don’t believe Rahm, consider this: DeChambeau averaged 334.6 yards off the tee; Larry Mize, 62, was an average of 247.4 years old. They both shot 70 in the first round on Thursday.
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