Bryson DeChambeau reveals preposterous number of weekly swing thoughts

AUGUSTA, Ga. — “I’ve got a lot going on up in there,” Bryson DeChambeau said Friday afternoon at the Masters, his 10,000-volt smile electrifying the press room as he pointed to his skull.

DeChambeau’s brain brought Augusta National to its feet on Friday afternoon, the same day he shot a four-under 68 to vault himself into solo possession of second place at golf’s first major. But Bryson did not need to elaborate when he suggested in the aftermath of that round that his brain has also brought him to his knees.

Anyone who has watched DeChambeau’s career arc has done so with an appreciation for the thin line between brilliance and madness. Bryson has toed this line often at points throughout his life, and perhaps — in the case of his 30-pound mid-Covid-distance-craze bulk — nudged over it.

On Friday at the Masters, though, Bryson erred on the side of genius. On the 5th hole, his brain populated a new swing thought — he described it as “like a topspin shot in ping pong” — that helped to propel the two-time major champ to his best 36-hole position at the Masters ever.

“On the 5th hole, I said to myself, ‘I’ve got to feel something that’s a little different,'” DeChambeau said. “And lo and behold, I think I just started to integrate more of an up-and-down motion. And that just felt more comfortable to me, and I started doing it, and it got more comfortable till the 9th hole.”

DeChambeau spoke about this shift as if he were ordering a coffee, but it struck me as strange. It’s one thing to noodle with swing thoughts on the range, and another to experiment with something new in the middle of a tournament round — but to try out a new swing thought in contention at the Masters? If he was willing to change swing thoughts so easily here, how often was he changing them elsewhere?

The answer, it turns out, is a tremendous amount.

“If I’m really trying to find my golf swing, I can go through 100 [swing thoughts] pretty easily,” DeChambeau said with a grin. “I’m telling you, like 15 to 20 [swing thoughts] on a range session, easily. Maybe more sometimes, if I’m really trying to find something.”

A hundred swing thoughts in a week! Fifteen to 20 in a week (or more) if he was going through something!! The press room burst out into laughter, and DeChambeau could not contain his own as he delivered this information. It was quintessential Bryson, and it seemed not even he could disagree.

“I’ve got a lot going on up in there,” he said again, a smile lighting up his face. “You wouldn’t want to be in there.”