BRADENTON, Fla. – Stay tuned for another Bryson DeChambeau driver experiment.
It’s arriving in the next few weeks.
Now that a 48-inch driver is off the table, DeChambeau will be debuting a new technology in his driver that he said should help limit his big misses on slight mis-hits.
“Nobody knows how to play a 200-mph ball speed and barely mis-hit it; sometimes it doesn’t react the way you think it should,” said DeChambeau, who improved 13 shots on Friday, firing an 8-under 64 at the WGC-Workday Championship. “So we’ve got to figure that out. We’re doing a good job, and in a couple weeks I’ll have some interesting stuff that will hopefully help mitigate some of those errors at high speeds so I can swing it fast again.”
This week at Concession, DeChambeau has been scaling back his nuclear driver and opting for more 3-woods and irons off the tee, to better keep it in play on the penal course. Among the leaders in the strokes gained: off-the-tee category for the past year, ever since this brawny experiment began, DeChambeau is currently ranked just 41st this week, averaging only 291 yards off the tee.
Though coy on the specifics of his latest project, DeChambeau said his new driver head will have a different face and design. He’s been consulting with former World Long Drive champions Kyle Berkshire and Jason Zuback.
When asked why he’d test something new now – with the Players Championship in two weeks, and the Masters less than two months away – DeChambeau said: “I’m very risk-averse. I don’t really care. I want the best now for myself. And if it doesn’t work out, then I can cross that off the list. It’ll help me progress quicker for next year’s Masters, or this year’s Masters. I don’t want to wait and test it. What if it works tomorrow, and it’s an amazing benefit for my game? That’s what I look at it. And over the course of time, I’ve become more risk-averse because of it.”