PINEHURST, N.C. — Bryson DeChambeau reigns as golf’s Mad Scientist, a constant, deliberate and diligent tinkerer with every technical element of his game. While it’s easy to mistake his sincerity when he talks about 3D printing his own irons — “since I got the equipment change last year, my whole life has changed dramatically,” he said earlier this week — it’s impossible to deny that he’s up to something.
DeChambeau scored the lowest score ever in a PGA Championship last month in Valhalla and then could only watch as Xander Schauffele defeated him by one stroke. This week at Pinehurst, he hovered around the top 10 for the first two days of the tournament and is in prime position to challenge for his second major.
During Friday’s round, fans were able to check out DeChambeau’s names for his clubs. As with all things DeChambeau, it’s a little weird, a little performative, and a little endearing.
He calls his 3 iron ‘Gamma’ because that is the third letter of the Greek alphabet. The 5 iron is “Azalea” as that is the name of his favorite Par 5 at Augusta National. “Juniper” is the name of the 6th at Augusta, “Tin Cup” refers to Kevin Costner’s call for a 7-iron, and “8-Ball” is a game DeChambeau likes to play.
And then it gets good. His 9 iron is called “Jackie” because it has a loft of 42 degrees (42 = Jackie Robinson’s number, get it?). His 46-degree pitching wedge is “Herman Keiser,” after the 1946 Masters champion, and his leading 50-degree wedge is “Jimmy Demaret,” after the 1950 Masters champion. You would assume his 55-degree sand wedge Would be ‘Cary Middlecoff’, after the 1955 Masters champion, but no: it’s ‘Mr. Ward,” after Harvie Ward, the lowly amateur at the 1955 U.S. Open. (Ward was 29 when he won, so it’s unclear why the 30-year-old DeChambeau called him “Mr.”, but whatever.) Finally his lob wedge is called ‘King’, in honor of Arnold Palmer. .
“The equipment I have is good enough to win major championships,” DeChambeau said earlier this week. “I feel a lot more comfortable under the gun in major championships because I can get the job done.”
Certainly, DeChambeau is the odd one out. But golf needs more from him. And if he ends up winning the US Open with his brand of deliberate strangeness, maybe he’ll give the green flag to other golfers to be as off-beat as they want. After all, it can pay off, as DeChambeau and Jackie can attest.
