'The problem was by way of the roof': Bryson DeChambeau displays on U.S. Open-winning bunker shot

After the drama and excitement of the U.S. Open over the weekend, you may suppose that Bryson DeChambeau would wish to take a number of days to decompress. As an alternative, he’s busier than ever. After a whirlwind media tour in New York Metropolis, DeChambeau was again to his day job on Wednesday, getting ready for this week’s LIV Golf Nashville.

“I’ve been operating on in all probability a cumulative complete previously three days, like possibly 12 hours of sleep, possibly,” DeChambeau stated at his pre-tournament press convention. “You guys are the rationale why I preserve going. It’s been improbable.”

DeChambeau coated quite a lot of floor in his interview, which included questions on how he balances content material creation with apply, his ideas about missing out on the Olympics for a second time and what it’s wish to be a role model for younger gamers. However for followers hoping to glean one thing from the two-time main champion’s on-course technique at Pinehurst, he additionally went deep on his U.S. Open-winning bunker shot.

“As a lot as I’m a really mechanical, methodical individual, there’s an artistry to me that not too many individuals know however I hope they’re beginning to see,” DeChambeau started. “And that 60-yard bunker shot, no matter it was, once I acquired up there, the one factor that gave me quite a lot of consolation was G-Bo telling me, Bryson, I’ve seen you hit far more tough photographs than this. You’ve acquired this. I stepped in there and executed it.

“I wished a tap-in, however it acquired as much as 4 toes, and I used to be able to go nuts, and you possibly can see me sort of get after it with G-Bo saying, ‘let’s go.’ That was so massive. However I knew I had a four-footer to make. It wasn’t only a tap-in.”

As for what made the bunker shot so arduous? DeChambeau stated it was the precision required at influence.

“From a technicality standpoint, you may’t miss it a millimeter behind the ball or a millimeter too near the ball,” he stated. “From 60 yards with an open face, it’s an explosion shot, and should you catch it just a bit skinny, I’m hitting it into that clubhouse. There is no such thing as a room for error. Very, little or no room for error. For it to even go that far out of a bunker takes a reasonably darned good quantity of energy.

“If I chunked it, too, it’s brief, hits the entrance edge and comes proper again down. Now I’m making an attempt to get up-and-down simply to get right into a playoff. The problem was by way of the roof, and it’s one thing that I by no means want anybody to have, to have that have. However in a U.S. Open, the hardest check in golf, you get offered that, you’ve simply acquired to go full power into it and simply embrace it and say, look, that is what the sport of golf has given me, I’ve practiced this earlier than. You’ve simply acquired to execute it.

“However the issue stage was by way of the roof,” he continued. “I knew how exact I wanted to be. I keep in mind trying down on the bunker and seeing only a small sliver of shiny sand about an inch and a half behind the ball, and I used to be like, simply go proper by way of that space, and that’s all I considered. I knew how a lot power to provide it primarily based on how I used to be swinging it, and I hit it simply flawlessly. When it got here out, my eyes popped up, they widened, and I’m like, that’s good, and it landed good, and it ran out, and I’m like, ‘let’s go.’ That was massive. It provides me chills desirous about that.

“The problem was by way of the roof. I can’t clarify, except someone experiences that for themselves, I can’t clarify how tough it really was.”

One other issue that DeChambeau stated benefited him at Pinehurst? Dialing in his wedge specs.

“I discovered what bounce works completely for me,” he stated. “I nearly don’t have any bounce on my wedge, however it has a wider sole, and that was an enormous factor for me. I actually constructed it, I feel, about lower than a month in the past, so my wedge recreation has simply gotten actually good just lately due to that grind.”

DeChambeau will hope to proceed his main momentum in Nashville. He tees off alongside Carlos Ortiz and Jon Rahm at 12:15 p.m. on Friday.

Golf.com Editor

As a four-year member of Columbia’s inaugural class of feminine varsity golfers, Jessica can out-birdie everybody on the masthead. She will be able to out-hustle them within the workplace, too, the place she’s primarily chargeable for producing each print and on-line options, and overseeing main particular initiatives, resembling GOLF’s inaugural Fashion Is­sue, which debuted in February 2018. Her origi­nal interview collection, “A Spherical With,” debuted in November of 2015, and appeared in each within the journal and in video type on GOLF.com.