AUGUSTA, Ga. – Bryson DeChambeau could have been forgiven if he had refused to meet with the media Friday after his second round in the Masters.
Just a few hours earlier he was leading the tournament, having reached 7 under. He was two shots clear of many of the game’s best players and all looked right in his world. And then it didn’t.
A bogey at No. 9 when his approach sailed the green, a double at 10 when his chipping deserted him, a bogey at 12 when his tee shot came up short. In four holes, he went from 2 up to 3 down as he hit shots that left him dazed and confused.
Just like that, he didn’t have an answer for any of the problems he was encountering at Augusta National Golf Club.
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He signed for a 75 a day after shooting 66 and could have bolted for the parking lot. Instead, he parked himself in front of members of the media and did his best to explain what he couldn’t explain.
“Just seemed like there was nothing going my way all day,” he said. “Every time I hit a good shot, I just seemed to not get rewarded or every time I hit just a fraction of a bad shot it got amplified by something.
“Weird stuff started to happen with my wedges around the greens in wetter conditions. Mind blowing to me. Just seemed like conditions at hand changed, although our theory, from what we normally are used to seeing, there’s something else that changed and so we don’t understand it yet.
“It’s frustrating because I executed everything to the best of my ability.”
Including a chip shot on the 10th.
“Hit a little 40‑yard shot relative to what I do on the range all day long, accounting for a five-, six-, seven-degree upslope, trying to hit it 40 yards. And it comes out, it shoots over the green like 60 yards. I don’t get it,” he said. “So that’s the game, that’s golf, and that’s why I love it, but I also hate it at the same time.”
How about your putting?
“Oh, my putting was atrocious today,” he said. “I couldn’t believe the putts that I missed today that I usually don’t miss. There’s something up. There’s just something weird that I got to get out of my system.
“Because I get over the putt and I’m like, this is perfect. I hit it and all of a sudden, the thing breaks left. And it’s a part of just not knowing what the greens are doing but just weird stuff, weird, weird, weird stuff. It was a really, really weird day.”
But Saturday is a new day, DeChambeau said.
“At the end of the day I still got a chance to win it,” he said. “What am I, four back right now? That’s not too bad going into the weekend, right? I’ve got two more days to figure this out.”
