Justin Thomas regrets doubting Bryson DeChambeau: ‘I should probably shut up’

Bryson DeChambeau isn’t playing this week, but he’s still been the talk of the golf world the last few months. A bulked-up Bryson has been mashing the ball off the tee and has notched seven straight top 10s, including a win last Sunday at the Rocket Mortgage Classic.

Some players were wary of DeChambeau’s transformation. Some still are. Others have learned their lesson.

“It’s obviously working for him,” said Justin Thomas on Wednesday at the Workday Charity Open. “I went from kind of being a little skeptical about it to maybe saying some things to realizing he was beating me every week and I should probably shut up and just start playing better for myself.”

DeChambeau ranked first in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee in Detroit, and he also led the field in driving distance (350.6 yards).

Thomas said he was next to DeChambeau on the range at the Travelers Championship last month.

“It honestly was frustrating because he’s hitting it 350 in the air and you could put a blanket over about half of them,” he said. “That’s what’s unbelievable. People don’t understand how hard it is to hit it that straight at that high speed. It’s really, really hard to hit a ball straight at 110 miles an hour swing speed, let alone 130 miles an hour swing speed and to do it consistently. Obviously he had some foul balls at a place like last week where it looked like he could hit it anywhere, but for the most part he’s driving it on a string really far. Yeah, I mean, it’s pretty unbelievable.”

Thomas is grouped with Brooks Koepka and Jason Day for the first two rounds of the Workday Charity Open. Here’s how you can follow the first-round action.

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