Forget experience. Forget the faster hitters. Forget the social media naysayers.
All that matters: Bryson DeChambeau advanced to the final day of the Professional Long Drivers Association’s World Championship in Mesquite, Nevada Thursday. The same Bryson DeChambeau who four days earlier helped the U.S. team claim the Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin.
With gusty, erratic winds blowing into the players’ faces, the 2020 U.S. Open champion – at golf golf, not long-drive – won two of his first four sets against three other competitors to lock up one of 16 total spots on Friday’s final day of competition.
Players competed for points in five sets, with an early-afternoon group of 16 players competing for eight spots and a late-afternoon group of 16 competing for eight more spots in the final field. DeChambeau was in the late-afternoon group, and he finished tied for fourth among those 16 long-ball bashers to advance.
NEW: Bryson DeChambeau has advanced to the Championship Round (Final 16) of the PLDA World Championship. pic.twitter.com/5YuvSz8Au1
— Rick Gehman (@RickRunGood) September 30, 2021
DeChambeau’s longest blasts in each of the five sets traveled 358, 338, 359, 333 and 333 yards. His drives of 358 and then 359 were among the top five balls hit by all 16 competitors in his group.
Those blasts into the wind were quite a bit shorter than on Day 1, when DeChambeau hit five balls past 400 yards. But long is relative in this muscled-up sport, and none of Thursday’s 32 competitors hit anything close to 400 into the breeze. After Tuesday’s favorable winds on Day 1, the 64 competitors who made it to Wednesday’s Day 2 also faced headwinds.
Those winds have proved favorable to DeChambeau, who doesn’t swing as fast as several of his competitors. But dead-solid contact with a controlled ball flight can pay off into the breeze. DeChambeau’s Trackman launch monitor numbers, when available, have been impressive – his best ball in his fifth set came with 144-mph clubhead speed, 213-mph ball speed, 227 yards of carry and a peak height of 121 feet to travel 333 yards total into the breeze off the right, as reported by the YouTube commentators during the livestream. The ball rolled considerably down the dryer right side of the landing grid.
None of DeChambeau’s long-ball success should be a total shock, even if the 28-year-old faced some social media criticism before the event that this is all a publicity stunt and he was going to be out of his league. He has proved those doubters wrong day after day in Mesquite in his first effort at elite long-drive competition, crushing the ball past much more experienced long-ball veterans.
DeChambeau led the PGA Tour in the recently concluded 2020-21 season with a 323.7-yard driving average, and his longest drive on Tour in that season was 414 yards. His average measured clubhead speed on drives was 132.25 mph, but he has said he can go faster in training and has backed that up at the World Championship. The top players in elite long-drive competitions frequently surpass 140 mph in clubhead speed, and DeChambeau showed he can get it past that 140 mark on the launch monitor in competition.
Keep in mind, all this is new to DeChambeau, winner of eight PGA Tour events. He even has a new club in his hands to max out his yardage. He’s swinging a 48-inch Cobra RADSpeed driver with an LA Golf Tour AXS Blue shaft – designed to create a low-spin, low-loft launch – that has been tipped an inch, making it even stiffer. On Tour he normally swings a Cobra driver that is less than 46 inches and much easier to control.
The longest drive of Day 2 came from Wes Patterson, who sent one 381 yards in the early-afternoon group. Colton Casto and Kyle Berkshire, the defending champion after winning the event in 2019 and with the 2020 competition having been canceled because of COVID-19, both hit balls 380 in that same Group A.
The longest drives in DeChambeau’s Group B came from Scottie Pearman and Martin Borgmeier, both of whom reached 367 yards. Ryan Steenberg hit one 361 in the same group.
The players who qualified out of Group A were Justin James, Casto, Bryce Verplank, Berkshire, Brandon Flynn, Patterson, Hyeon Jun Hong and Josh Koch. In Group B the players to advance were Ryan Steenberg, Borgmeier, Zack Holton, Nick Vorbeck, Ryan Gregnol, Pearman, DeChambeau and Taiga Tazawa of China, whose celebratory antics have gained fans on social media.
Friday’s final will progress from group play to a head-to-head match between two players to lock up the title. The finals begin at 6:45 p.m. ET (3:45 local time) and will be livestreamed on the PLDA YouTube channel.
Source: Golfweek https://ift.tt/2V95qPJ