Bryson DeChambeau is already looking straight ahead to the Masters at Augusta. The American arrives at this stage of the season in a period of growth, further strengthened by his recent victory in Singapore, but with the sense that he still has room for improvement in a very specific area of his game: his wedges. That is currently much of his competitive obsession, his daily work and also his hope of turning up to the first major of the year as an even more complete version of himself
The captain of Crushers GC spoke at length in the build-up to the LIV Golf event in South Africa about Augusta, about how he is preparing his assault on the Green Jacket, about the painstaking process of fine-tuning his equipment and even about his view of the international calendar and the future of golf. And, as almost always happens with DeChambeau, he produced soundbites, reflections and a good dose of technical depth
To begin with, Bryson did not hide what the main focus is in these weeks leading up to the Masters. The driver is responding, the irons are on the right track and his putting also gives him confidence. That is why his focus is now on that mid-game area that so often decides a major: “Yes, I know I need to fine-tune my wedges. That is going to be very important for me. I’m starting to strike the driver well, starting to strike the irons well, putting really well…”
“The last key for me is the wedges, and this week I’ve been trying out a whole bag of wedges, different soles, different weights, different shafts, different lengths, everything, doing a bit of what I did in 2023 when I was testing loads of drivers at the end of that year and then found the driver I still use today. I hope to find what works and that it keeps working. It helped last week, but this week the conditions are a bit different as well. It’s soft, like last week, but different. Augusta is going to be different. I’m really focused on getting my equipment dialled in”, he detailed
It is not an insignificant remark. In DeChambeau‘s case, talking about equipment does not just mean changing a club or trying a different feel. It means entering a permanent laboratory where he analyses weight, bounce, length, shaft, friction, shapes and the behaviour of the turf at impact. All aimed at the same goal: arriving at Augusta with the exact tool to execute the shots that a such a special course demands
His explanation of that work with wedges was a genuine X-ray of how he processes golf from the inside. Very few players verbalise with so much transparency and detail their relationship with equipment and technique: “It’s a great question. It has a lot to do with the impact point and how much grass gets between the clubface and the ball, and mitigating that, managing that impact. And how you manage that impact depends on how soft the ground is. If it sinks a lot into the turf, if not, if it bounces off the turf like in Australia, where the ground was very hard, so it bounced quickly. Then you could leave it quite behind the ball and hit low on the face. If here it’s soft, you hit in the same spot and it digs under; you hit high on the face and it comes out with more spin and shorter and more dead”
“So I’m trying to find a ‘bounce’ that works for me, first of all, that plays like in firm conditions, because I’ve always played quite well in firm conditions. I’m learning from these guys. I watch how they strike it, I see what they do and I’m learning a lot from my team, although I don’t necessarily ask them because they’re tired of me asking them about wedges. They just tell me: go to shorter wedges and to normal-length clubs, which I’ve tried, and I’m still bad at it”, he detailed
“But I’ll tell you it’s good to see how they hit the ball, the forward lean of the shaft and where they impact on the face, because that’s important. So I think the height of the leading edge relative to the ‘bounce’ is very, very important depending on how soft the grass is. I think the friction of the face surface is really important, how rough it can get. Interestingly, when the face gets rougher, it actually starts to spin less from a certain point, up to the legal limit. And then, once you pass the legal limit, it starts to spin more and more. There’s like a bell curve with that. It’s pretty wild”, Bryson elaborated
“Then you can have scenarios where the face is super smooth and then it gets wet and it slips and doesn’t spin at all, when it should spin. Unfortunately, I miss my wedges quite a bit, maybe because I don’t have the correct ‘bounce’ set-up. Maybe the shape of the ‘grind’ is a bit different. I’m trying some new wedges. They almost have a kind of bubble on the sole and it’s been helping me a lot. It helped last week. We have a bit more weight in the wedge heads. We’re removing things that haven’t worked for me, whether a softer shaft, shorter wedges, a different kind of ‘torque’ in the head for contact, different types of ‘grind’, lighter heads, without grooves to with grooves, friction in the grooves… We’re going through everything possible and trying to isolate the biggest problems in my wedge game and eliminate them as much as we can so that I can be… hell, if I’m 5 per cent more consistent, I have better chances than I did last year at the Masters“, he concluded about his analysis
“I took the last Masters as an opportunity to learn to become a better irons and wedges player. I feel like almost everything was there. Just a couple of fine tweaks and keep striking the ball like I have been, and hopefully it gives me a good chance”, he summarised. In other words, DeChambeau is not redoing his game. He is polishing it. He is looking for small margins of improvement that, on a course like Augusta National, can make the difference between falling short or truly being in a position to win. And that nuance is important: he feels much of the foundation is already built
His remarks about the Masters also included a broader reflection on the competitive process. In his case, each win is not a finishing line but almost an excuse to keep looking for answers. The American explained how he turns every tournament into useful learning for the season’s big objectives: “It’s brutal going from time zone to time zone, but as professionals that’s what we have to do. Sometimes you have to tough it out and go through moments of tiredness and when the body doesn’t feel right. That’s part of the job. We’re called to do that”
“How do I stay motivated week to week? It’s a personal journey. I’m always trying to improve my own game in any facet, whether a bit more on the putt, starting it more in line more consistently, leaving the wedges closer, striking my irons, starting the ball a bit better on my lines… It’s simply a personal journey in which I try to get better every week. It doesn’t matter that I won last week, I’m already thinking about the next one. I appreciate it, I respect it, I have great moments that have been built from that and I learn from that emotional load walking down the 18th and feeling those moments, and how to control it as much as I can; the fear of hitting it in the water and thinking: mmm, maybe I won’t win. But then re-establishing in my head that I can still make par. Overcoming those mental blocks sometimes when you feel uncomfortable on a tee shot. All those are things I take and I just try to build on them for the weeks to come, for the majors season, for anything I’m trying to create, even if it’s for a YouTube video. I’m still trying to be a better version of myself”, he elaborated
“I think having the goal of being the best version of myself is really what keeps me going. It’s funny, in Hong Kong I was so frustrated after playing how I did there. I said: ‘enough, I have to change something. Something has to change’. And indeed, the following week I go, play well and win. Sometimes that’s just what it takes: a kick up the backside, focus a bit more, tighten up and demand more from yourself sometimes. It’s not always pretty, but it’s a situation that sometimes all professionals experience. It’s like: okay, it’s time to put it into another gear, enough. So I think it’s more of a personal journey than anything else”, he admitted
Along the same line of thought, Bryson also offered a very interesting reflection when asked how he would reorganise international golf if it were in his hands. His answer was less a fixed calendar proposal than a statement of principles about the kind of product that, in his view, can truly grow the sport. For DeChambeau, the big path forward lies in boosting team golf and turning those rivalries into a recognisable, attractive spectacle for much wider audiences: “What would I like to put on the golf calendar? I do think there is an opportunity in the future for team golf to be near the front line of golf, alongside the majors and all that. I think at some point we can get close. It will never be a major, obviously, but having team rivalries, whether it’s just Crushers against Southern Guards or whatever, is great, but imagine a scenario where we face Jupiter Links in a show of 18 holes, four against four, going head to head in a Netflix show or whatever, or whoever wants to produce it”
“I think there are many opportunities for teams to face teams in the future, and that could be a great moment to grow the game, with people who have never played watching that and getting hooked. Maybe they’ll never play golf, but they watch it, like with American football. I heard a statistic the other week: American football has around 2 million people who play it each… that’s a big question, by the way. It’s not easy to ask that question. It’s a big question. Only about 2 million people play American football, but there are over 50 million who watch it each week”, he said
“The Super Bowl is watched by more than 100 million people, a two-and-a-half or three-hour show. In golf it’s almost the reverse: you have between 3 and 5 million people watching each week across different tours, and you can add it all up and… they’re not perfect figures, but you know what I mean. And then there are probably between 50 and 60 million people playing golf. So it’s completely the opposite of American football. We don’t have people casually tuning in to watch golf and enjoying it. I think there’s an opportunity for the world to see the game for what it could be, which is rivalries and teams versus teams”, he analysed
“We have player versus player and we’ve done exhibitions, we’ve tried it, it’s great, but imagine creating a culture like the NFL, like the NBA, and I understand we’re an individual sport. But yes, we play team events. We have the Ryder Cup. We have the Presidents Cup. There should be something more. Why not?”, he wondered
And, taken to the concrete, he did not hesitate to fantasise — or perhaps throw down a very real challenge — with match-ups between teams from different formats or competitions: “What if the Crushers face Jupiter Links in an 18-hole match, 4 against 4 stroke play?” And he went even further: “Right here, why not? You would love to take them on, right? Why not? It would be fun. Show who’s the best, which is the best team in the world, or whichever. Los Ángeles, whatever. We’d take them on. Jon Rahm‘s team, we’d take them on everyone. And how good would that be for golf, too?”
Beyond the calendar, Bryson also dwelt on a fundamental question he considers key to understanding where the sport should head: the eternal debate between preserving tradition or facilitating the growth of golf. There he also connected directly with equipment, power and the decisions made by governing bodies: “I think there is a legal limit set for everything. There’s really no way around it. If you want to say that a 2009 driver is worse than a current one, I would actually disagree with you. I think they’re relatively the same and it hasn’t changed much. You can’t change it that much with the rules being what they are”
“So I think it has much more to do with athleticism, and with not being so afraid to go for shots or to swing harder or be more aggressive. I would warn anyone thinking of changing the rules of the game because they’re already established. Let the athletes be athletes and let’s go have fun”, he said
And he rounded off his idea with a reflection that defines well his vision of contemporary golf: “One last thing, I also think it’s very important to set the base from the point of view of the question. What are the golf bodies trying to achieve? Are they trying to preserve the traditions and history of the game, or are they trying to grow the game? Because those are two different things. They can overlap in some aspects, in a way, but when you try to preserve the traditions and history of the game, yes, you’ll want to return to a ball that flies less because players are more athletic. Yes, you’ll want to make heads smaller. You’ll want to do this or that”
“But if you want to grow the game, that’s not how you get kids to hit it further, enjoy it and want to be part of this game. They’re at a kind of crossroads right now and they have to answer those questions. What do these governing bodies really want? If they can answer that, then we can start to move in that direction, but right now they have to answer that question before we, the players, can get involved, because if they want something different, well, maybe we, the players, want to make it easier for others, like I do. I like to show how fun it is to play golf, not how hard it is. Yes, there are tough moments, but I want people to enjoy it, to get out into nature”, the Californian questioned
“My goals are those: I want people to experience this more. So answering that question is, I think, the first step in knowing which direction golf should move”, he stated. In short, Bryson arrives at Augusta with a recent win, growing confidence and a very specific mission on his hands: to turn his wedges into a dependable weapon to compete for the Masters. His words show he is fully engaged in that process, fine-tuning every variable and trying to turn the science of detail into real performance when the moment of truth arrives. If he succeeds, he will once again be one of the most feared names at Augusta National
