EThe 84th Masters, which starts on Thursday, is a lot different: for the first time, the tournament, which has been held on the Augusta National Golf Club since 1934, takes place in November instead of April. Corona prevented the event in spring. The pandemic also ensures that no spectators are allowed to line the perfectly manicured fairways and greens on the hilly course in northeast Georgia. And since the sun sets there at 5.30 p.m. in November, the 86 professionals and six amateurs will start their rounds in the first two rounds from both the first and the tenth tee. The pandemic has even left its mark on the field of participants. The Spaniard Sergio García, the Masters champion of 2017, and the Chilean Joaquín Niemann had to forego participation due to positive Covid-19 tests.
But all of these changes are only marginal notes in the run-up to the third and final major of this year. As with the PGA Championship and the US Open, everything revolves around Bryson DeChambeau and the question: Can the muscle man on this traditional course distance the competition with his huge tees and his sensitivity on the greens as at the US Open? Can he reduce one of the most famous courses in the world to what the golf jargon calls a “pitch and putt course”, because after his drives there are only short approaches to the greens? Because on the former tree nursery there are wide fairways and no ankle or knee-deep grass at the edge of the fairways like at the US Open. The fairways are mowed to exactly 0.95 centimeters, the grass in the so-called “second cut” is only 3.49 centimeters high in Augusta. Anywhere else in the world this would be called “semi-rough”.
The jaw drops down
Sandy Lyle, the 1988 Masters winner, played a practice round with DeChambeau last week and was amazed afterwards. The 62-year-old Scot meticulously noted which clubs the 27-year-old Californian used on the round. To give an example: On the first hole, the “Hulk of Golf” hit the ball 347 meters and carried the ball with a sand wedge from 73 meters onto the green. The muscleman also easily reached the greens of the four par-5 holes with the second shot, the longest club was a 7 iron on the 8th hole, which measures 526 meters. Lyle, who, like the German Bernhard Langer of the same age as a former champion, has a lifelong right to participate in the Masters, assessed this round as “jaw-dropping”. So good that your jaw drops.
The “longest” in golf: Nobody hits the ball further than Bryson DeChambeau.
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Image: AFP
On Monday, DeChambeau went on a practice round on the “back nine”, i.e. holes 10 to 18, together with defending champion Tiger Woods, world number three Justin Thomas and Fred Couples. The tees of the world number six always landed at least twenty meters in front of those of the teammates – and that with his normal driver, with a 45.5 inch (1.16 meter) shaft. Although he had announced in advance that he would play the Masters with a 48 inch (1.21 meter) long shaft, the maximum length allowed. He had experimented with the extra-long driver since his last tournament participation at the Shriners Open in Las Vegas, where he finished eighth, but will probably not use it at the tournament.
He demonstrated on the first day of the exercise that he does not need additional length. “It’s phenomenal,” said the 61-year-old Couples, “I’ve never seen a player hit the ball that far. If he does that this week and putt well, then he will be the man to beat. ”The 1992 Masters Champion, who was considered one of the“ longest ”in the industry at that time, could only be amazed that the Muscle man despite the elemental force with which he swings, lets the ball fly so straight and usually land on the fairway. On the 15th hole, DeChambeau’s ball speed was measured at 195 miles (314 kilometers) an hour, a figure well above the PGA Tour’s average of just 170 miles (274 kilometers).
DeChambeau now also leads in these statistics, a result of his enormous muscle gain. At the last Masters in April 2019, the professional, who now lives in Dallas, weighed 88 kilograms. Now, after months of intensive training, it is twenty kilograms more – and he uses that to hit the ball much further. At the Masters 2019 he finished 29th in the driving statistics with 274 meters.
This year DeChambeau leads the PGA Tour with 315 meters. Last year DeChambeau ended up in 29th place at the Masters, seven strokes behind winner Woods. But he already proved last year that he can play low rounds on this course. He had led the field after an opening round of 66 strokes, but fell back after rounds of 75, 73 and 70. But for the big favorite everything feels very different this year: “With my new length, I have to learn how to play this course.”
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