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Bryson DeChambeau's Masters preparations are — different. Days after carrying one drive 400 yards, we got a sneak preview of what that looks like on course. The post Whoa. What’s Bryson DeChambeau doing with driver in this new video? appeared first on Golf.
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – Phil Mickelson has often said he owes a lot to Tiger Woods. The 50-year-old knows Woods helped golf's popularity soar, and with it, so did the purses and exposure for sponsorship opportunities. This allowed someone as successful as Mickelson to have a very fruitful career. But as Mickelson returns to the PGA TOUR at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP @ SHERWOOD this week, fresh off claiming his second PGA TOUR Champions win in as many starts, he was praising Woods for another aspect of his own career. His longevity. Mickelson has been competitive on TOUR since winning as an amateur in 1991. “Looking back, I wish I had been a little bit more committed fitness‑wise in the height of my career... (but) Tiger pushed me to start training a little bit more, which has helped me elongate my career,” Mickelson said Wednesday at Sherwood Country Club. During the last few years, Mickelson has significantly added length to his game despite his age, but while he wished he’d been even fitter, he says he doesn’t regret not chasing “bombs” earlier in his career. As Bryson DeChambeau sets new marks for ball speed and distance, Mickelson says it just wouldn’t have been feasible in his time. “During the prime of my career we really didn't have launch monitors, so we weren't able to dial a lot of this stuff in. A lot of this was by feel and seeing the ball and using vision to see, oh, it's spinning too much, it's floating. We didn't have the precision to dial things in the way we do now,” Mickelson said. ”Now guys that are hitting it in the 180‑mile‑an‑hour ball speeds are getting pushed to go to the 190s because of Bryson and a lot of guys have to do that to keep up.” While Mickelson will continue to work on the speed that is comfortable for him and his play, the 44-time TOUR winner is mindful of accuracy with driver. It has been a problem for him throughout his career. “I actually feel there's a point of diminishing return about 182‑ to 185‑mile‑an‑hour ball speed. I think once you get over that, I don't know if you're really getting out of it what you put in, meaning a lot of courses won't allow for that advantage to be taken if you get in the 190s,” Mickelson explained. “Holes dogleg, you have tighter landing areas, there's only a couple holes a golf course where it can really help you and I feel like most guys are already at that optimum distance of 182‑ to 185‑mile‑an‑hour ball speed.” The veteran is full of confidence again after another victory against his former foes. He became just the third player to win in his first two starts on the PGA TOUR Champions with a win in the Dominion Energy Charity Classic last weekend. But he knows he needs to step it up to compete on the PGA TOUR. “I'm excited to compete and come off of last week's event on (PGA TOUR Champions) and try to play, compete against the young guys. This is a fun opportunity for me,” he said. “It's been really fun for me to play and compete on (PGA TOUR Champions), a lot more so than I thought it would be. I'm surprised how much fun I'm having, how much fun it is to see some of the same guys that I've seen for so many years and haven't had a chance to be with them for a number of years now. I seem to get a little bit of confidence and I'm hoping to bring that over into this event. “But the penalty for a miss is much more severe on the regular TOUR, the pin placements are a little bit more difficult. The length isn't as different as I thought. We play the back tees on the Champions Tour and it can play every bit as long, but the courses out here are a lot more penalizing. I have to be a little bit more precise.”
LAS VEGAS – You got to hand it to Bryson DeChambeau. He put his money where his mouth is. One year ago, DeChambeau looked a small throng of journalists in the eye as he was getting set to leave the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open and vowed he would transform his body to a level not seen before. RELATED: Inside the big-hittinng group of DeChambeau, Champ & Wolff “I’m going to come back next year and look like a different person. You're going to see some pretty big changes in my body, which is going to be a good thing. Going to be hitting it a lot further,” DeChambeau said after finishing T4 in his title defense at TPC Summerlin. At the time the comments brought with it plenty of eyerolls. A sense of – here goes crazy Bryson again – was most certainly permeating through some of the golf world. But the doubters are – at least right now – eating their words. Because “hitting it a lot further” is an understatement. And he’s combined raw power with some pretty impressive accuracy – at least enough to win the Rocket Mortgage Challenge by three and the U.S. Open by six. At the end of the 2018-19 season DeChambeau boasted a Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee mark of +0.421 and a driving distance average of 302.5 yards. A year later he put up a season where his SG: Off-the-Tee led the TOUR at +1.039 and led driving distance at 322.1 yards. Exactly one year to the day from his comments, on Tuesday evening at the TPC Summerlin range, DeChambeau had to move 40 yards behind his playing competitors on the range. He is now some 40 pounds heavier and noticeably bulked up. And he was hitting the ball into a residential area where thankfully some TOUR equipment trucks were parked to take the brunt instead of some houses. “I watched Happy Gilmore a little while ago and just re-inspired me to try and hit it as far as possible,” he quipped Wednesday. Well even after moving back on the range DeChambeau was threatening those in the trucks. It immediately evoked thoughts of Adam Sandler’s character hitting balls from his grandmothers lawn into the distance and smashing into a house some 400 yards away. When the movers don’t believe what they saw he replicates it, knocking a person out of the second story window he just broke. DeChambeau thankfully wasn’t injuring any innocent bystanders. But he was intimidating his fellow competitors who could see and hear the massive drives whistling over their heads. He’s already won at this course but now he will attack it from all new places. He says he can potentially go after four of the par 4’s off the tee and of course easily reach all of the par 5s in two. “There will be holes where I'm going to try and drive them, get it up as close to the green as possible,” he confirmed right before heading out for his Pro-am on Wednesday. “It's just fun having a 7-iron go 220. That's unique. And 4-iron, 265. There will be holes where I had to hit 3-wood and now I'm hitting 4-iron off the tees. “At the same point in time it's about putting, chipping, wedging. You still got to do everything else really well. So if I play well, ball strike it well, and putt well, I think I'll have a good chance again. Love this golf course.” DeChambeau was already a multiple time winner on the TOUR and a former U.S. Amateur champion. He didn’t need to make change, certainly not drastic change, if he didn’t want to. But his personality demands he chase perfection even though cerebrally he knows it’s unattainable. Getting closer to it though is not. Prior to the transformation he hadn’t contended well at majors. Now at just 27, he is a seven-time TOUR winner with a U.S. Open trophy in his house. The PGA Championship in August was his first top 10 in a major (T4) and his performance at Winged Foot last month to win by six was potentially a game-changer for the sport in general. It was there after his win he flouted the next move – using a 48-inch driver to bring even more distance into play. He immediately set to work on testing and while he is not ready to unveil it in his first event since the U.S. Open triumph, it is likely to come out at the Masters in November. “I won't unveil that until Augusta,” he confirmed. “(But) I'm looking forward to trying to put in a 48-inch driver and see what that can do for the golf course and what opportunities it will present for me. “It's going well. I think there is a lot of, I don't know, I guess you could say advantages to having a 48-inch driver and being able to put it in play and keep it in play. So working on that. Still need to get some things worked out, but so far it's been pretty amazing.” Indeed the entire year long transformation has been amazing. And with DeChambeau you can count on the fact there will always be more to come.
Federal Club golf professional Josh Price just happened to have video rolling when John Daly — sans hat and barefoot — took a swing on the par-3 11th hole. The post John Daly made the most John Daly hole-in-one ever appeared first on Golf.
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