Love him or hate him, and as quirky as he may be, Bryson DeChambeau knows how to play some golf.
From his years of maximizing his driving distance to the 3D-printed irons he’s using this week at Augusta National Golf Club (yes, you read that right), DeChambeau has always marched to the beat of his own drum. Just in case you missed the era of “Long Distance Driver” obsessed DeChambeau, here’s an all-time classic video of him speed training at the Masters from a couple of years ago.
Notice PGA Tour legend and former Masters champion Vijay Singh watching in awe as Bryson swings out of his shoes:
Bryson was one of the big personalities on the PGA Tour that made the move to the LIV Tour, so no one has really seen a lot of DeChambeau as of late. But rest assured, he’s just as strange and innovative as he was before, proving that to be true by rolling out 3D printed irons that were just approved by the USGA (United States Golf Association) this past week.
It’s always seemed as though the Masters would suit the game of DeChambeau well, but ever since he said that his personal par for Augusta National was 67 (when its actually 72), he’s struggled… and obviously hasn’t ever heard the end of him calling the course a Par 67.
However, Bryson is having some early success in this year’s Masters, and has lead the tournament for much of the first two days of competition. He’s not exactly striping it around the iconic golf course, yet he continues to score well and make birdies.
The wildest of those birdies came on the Par-5 13th hole during his second round. Bryson sliced his tee shot into the tall trees on the right, punched out of the pine straw into a different hole’s fairway, and then proceeded to hit his approach shot close to the hole and make a putt for birdie. Because golf.
Along the journey of that singular hole though, Bryson had to remove a man-made obstruction that was in the way of his recovery punch shot. That obstruction was one of Augusta National’s iconic directional signs, and the images of him carrying the sizable sign over his shoulder have captivated the social media world.
Iconic.
Obviously, there’s a little bit of an accidental homage to Jesus carrying his own cross, though I don’t mean to imply that Bryson DeChambeau is any kind of Messiah. The same thing can’t be said for those who have reacted to the moment on social media:
As you can see in that video above, it looked like one of the Masters volunteers was telling Bryson to put the sign down immediately. I’m sure he happily obliged, and eventually made birdie on the hole.
Golf is a crazy game.
