Bryson enters Masters weekend hoping to learn from last year

AUGUSTA, Ga. – For the second consecutive Masters, Bryson DeChambeau will enter the weekend with a legitimate shot to win his first green jacket.

The Crushers GC captain shot a 4-under 68 in Friday’s second round at Augusta National and is now at 7 under through 36 holes, just one shot off the lead held by Justin Rose.

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DeChambeau hopes Saturday’s third round goes better than it did a year ago when he entered the weekend sharing the lead but fell off the pace with a 3-over 75. He eventually finished tied for sixth, his best Masters result to date but a frustrating result nonetheless, given the possibilities.

Perhaps it was also a necessary growing pain. The next month, he made significant noise in the final round of the PGA Championship, closing with a 64 to finish solo second. A month after that, he claimed his second U.S. Open title, outdueling Rory McIlroy thanks to a legendary up-and-down from 50 yards on the final hole.

And now he’s here again. He realizes the margins are very slim, especially at Augusta National.

“Experience always helps,” DeChambeau said Friday. “Winning the U.S. Open gives you a lot of confidence. You just have to hit the right shots under the right conditions at the right moment in time, and that’s what allows you to win.

“A couple things at the U.S. Open last year that doesn’t go my way, I don’t win, right? And it went my way. You’ve got to have a couple things go your way this week, but I’m going to give myself as much of a possibility as I can to play my best golf.”

DeChambeau is making his ninth start on a course that hasn’t always treated him favorable. By opening with rounds of 69-68, it’s the first time he’s produced consecutive rounds in the 60s here. Maybe he’s figured something out.

And maybe all the time he’s spent on the range this week is paying off. The official Masters range tracker listed DeChambeau as having hit 393 practice shots on Tuesday, 156 on Wednesday, 109 shots before Thursday’s round, another 101 after the round, and 65 on Friday’s round, which began mid-morning Friday.

That’s 824 shots, and Bryson was headed for more Friday afternoon. “I don’t think I will be practicing as much tonight,” he said, “but I’ll put a little bit of effort in, like normal.”

Despite all those practice shots, DeChambeau said he “actually found the golf swing more on the golf course” during the second round. He cited his tee shot at the par-4 fifth as the key moment.

On the previous hole, the par-3 fourth, he pulled his tee shot into the left bunker but holed out for birdie – “an unbelievable bonus for me,” he recalled.

Standing on the 5th tee, having turned trouble into a two on the scorecard, he told himself he needed to feel something different.

“Lo and behold, I think I just started to integrate more of an up-and-down motion,” DeChambeau said. “And that just felt more comfortable to me.”

At the par-4 ninth, he hit a perfectly shaped tee shot. “Exactly the way I saw it in my head, exactly what I practice on the range,” he said. “I was like, ‘There it is.’”

He felt that way the rest of the round – and yet, strangely enough, his back-nine score of even par was worse than his 4-under on the front.

“That’s the way golf is,” he said. “It sometimes doesn’t play out the way you statistically think it should. That’s why this game is so great.”

He’s hoping to achieve greatness this weekend. It will require patience. It will require brilliant course management. It will require an improvement on last year’s weekend.

But at least he’s taken the first steps.

“You have to put yourself in position,” he said. “You have to fail. You have to lose. You have to win. You have to come from behind. You have to hold the lead. All those expectations and feelings have to get conquered in your mind. That’s why this game is played between your ears.”

A few minutes later, DeChambeau offered a self-analysis of his own thought process to unlocking the secrets of the golf swing. Pointing toward his head, he issued a self-deprecating warning.

“I’ve got a lot going on up in there,” he said. “You wouldn’t want to be in there.”

(Photos by Montana Pritchard/LIV Golf)