Bryson DeChambeau hits a tee shot during his victory at the U.S. Open.
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A wedge into the 445-yard, par-4 1st hole.
“Wow.”
An 8-iron into the 575-yard, par-5 2nd hole.
“That’s crazy.”
A 3-wood over the green – over – on the 350-yard, par-4 3rd hole.
“That’s just insane.”
According to Carl Paulson this week on SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio, Bryson DeChambeau recently played Augusta National with former Masters champ Sandy Lyle in advance of next week’s tournament, DeChambeau’s first at ANGC since his well-documented weight, muscle and corresponding distance gain.
“It was jaw dropping,” Paulson said to co-host Dennis Paulson.
Throughout the course.
On the 570-yard, par-5 8th, Lyle told Carl Paulson, DeChambeau hit a 7-iron into the green.
“Only 3-, 4-iron – if you smash one, you might get an iron in your hands,” Dennis Paulson said. “It’s always been pretty much a wood for the majority of the field.”
DeChambeau hit a sand wedge into the 460-yard, par-4 9th. He hit a pitching wedge into the 495-yard, par-4 10th. He hit a 9-iron into the 505-yard, par-4 11th.
On the 510-yard, par-5 13th, DeChambeau went 3-wood, 7-iron. On the 530-yard, par-5 15th, he hit a 9-iron into the green. On the 440-yard, par-4 17th, he hit a sand wedge.
What's Bryson going to be hitting into the greens at The Masters?@CarlPaulsonGolf got an inside peak from Sandy Lyle during a recent practice round Lyle played w/ DeChambeau at Augusta. pic.twitter.com/KVZqK8A2Rl
“I’m not taking away anything from what he’s doing, but that tells me a lot that the golf course, it was fairly warm – he had decent weather – and there had to be a little bit of bounce,” Dennis Paulson said. “So the golf course got to be sweet.”
After his last tournament, the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open early last month, DeChambeau said he had planned to play a practice round at Augusta. He was going to “have some fun and see what I can do,” he said.
He apparently did.
“Well, No. 1 may be different; I don’t know, just depends on the wind conditions, obviously,” DeChambeau said of how he would approach Augusta with his added length. “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.”
Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for editing, writing and developing stories across the golf space. And when he’s not writing about ways to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native is probably playing the game, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash away his score. You can reach out to him about any of these topics — his stories, his game or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.
