Jack Nicklaus was first in shock.
Bryson DeChambeau had just hit his tee shot on Friday on the 15th hole at Muirfield Village Golf Club into a penalty area left of the fairway, taken his drop and grabbed a fairway wood. He was going to try to hit it close, the 290 yards remaining to the hole, the trees in front of him and a sidehill lie below him be damned.
“Oh my gosh,” Nicklaus said as DeChambeau blasted it right. The ball soared over a black fence that separated the course from homes in the Dublin, Ohio, neighborhood, hit a tree, then came to rest back underneath the fence.
Nicklaus was then in pain.
“Ahhhhhhhh,” Nicklaus said as DeChambeau dropped again, grabbed his fairway wood again and blasted it over the fence again.
Nicklaus was finally in acceptance.
“I think he’ll ‘Tin-Cup’ it, I really do,” Nicklaus cracked, a reference to the movie where the star continually tried to hit a similar impossible shot, as DeChambeau dropped a third time and grabbed his fairway wood a third time. This time, DeChambeau was safe. It landed short of the fence (though it came close to another hazard). Third strike, and he wasn’t out.
Over five minutes of the second round of the Memorial, Nicklaus, the golf legend and tournament host, was as up and down as DeChambeau was left and right.
DeChambeau, Nicklaus said, will straighten out.
Over the past year, DeChambeau has transformed his body – he’s added weight, and, with it, he’s added distance. He needs to transform his head, too, Nicklaus said.
“You know, I wonder, Bryson has changed his body, he’s changed his game, he’s changed his philosophy, he’s changed how he’s played, and I think he’s in the process of really learning what he is and what he’s doing right now,” Nicklaus said during the Golf Channel coverage. “I think he’s got to go through it. He’s got to find out when it’s smart to do what and when it’s smart to do not. He’s never had this before.”
DeChambeau eventually pitched on and two-putted. For a quintuple-bogey 10. In one hole, he went from 1-over for the tournament to 6-over, and he missed a cut for the first time since last September.
“I think he’s trying to learn who he is again,” Nicklaus said. “He was a really good golfer, and all of a sudden, he’s got really big, and he’s loving hitting the ball a long way. That’s going to be a great advantage for him, but he’s got to learn to tone it back when it’s time to tone it back. The combination of the two will only make him a better golfer, but he’s got to learn to do that. It will be just a little bit of time before he gets there.”
