Sometimes the painfully obvious doesn’t make itself recognizable until the very last minute or, in the case of Sunday’s U.S. Open, the final group on the final hole on the final day. This was Bryson DeChambeau’s tournament to win all along, wasn’t it?
How else could an Open at Pinehurst, 25 years since Payne Stewart captured his only major title there, reach the finish line? DeChambeau, who now tells the story of not having decided to attend SMU until he saw a large mural of Stewart’s Open title on the Dallas campus and realized that the Hilltop had been Stewart’s school of choice, was the only logical winner.
The Mad Scientist transformed himself into the Mad Scrambler to win his second major. He won a completely different U.S. Open at Winged Foot, one without fans during COVID four years ago, from the one he captured by a single stroke Sunday. This victory came only after Rory McIlroy missed a short but tricky downhill par putt on the final hole after having overtaken DeChambeau during the final round. Rory began the day three shots back but held a one-stroke lead near the end before missing two short putts in the final three holes to lose by one.
Just as 25 years ago much of the Pinehurst crowd was cheering for Phil Mickelson to win his first major, the wildly popular McIlroy had huge support from those hoping to witness his first major victory in 10 years. Those fans were denied once again and, at times, drowned out by the massive support that DeChambeau has captured this season. He is the rare LIV golfer, most likely the only one, who has become more popular since leaving the PGA Tour for the Saudi-fueled barely watched tour, but he has worked hard at it too.
DeChambeau has shed much of the weight he carried around four years ago when his experimentation with distance took him into a new stratosphere for golf. He still bombs away and launched some of the longest drives on the Pinehurst layout this week, but he had to blast his way out of the sand and native grasses, especially on the final hole when his long bunker shot following a wild tee shot got him within a few feet of the pin for the winning putt.
DeChambeau had close calls at both the Masters and PGA Championship before working his way to a three-shot lead through three rounds at the Open and then hanging on against McIlroy for the win.
DeChambeau pointed to the Payne Stewart logo on his cap and then the sky as soon as he won Sunday. Stewart died in a private plane crash in Oct. 1999, just weeks after playing for the victorious Ryder Cup team at Brookline, Mass., and a few months after his Open victory at Pinehurst.
DeChambeau still travels the odd route towards success with his same-length irons, with his golf balls soaked in Epsom salts to check for roundness, with his detailed examination of every possible element for each shot. But he plays to the crowd better than most and he dedicated his efforts this week to the former SMU standout who encouraged his college choice more than a decade ago. How else could the 1,000th USGA event possibly play out?
Along the way, DeChambeau has isolated himself as the one LIV golfer fans truly miss seeing on the PGA Tour. There are other very good players like Brooks Koepka and Cameron Smith and, occasionally but not so often these days, Dustin Johnson. But no one puts on a show quite like Bryson’s. While McIlroy tried to rewind the clock a decade to the time of his greatness, DeChambeau dialed it back a quarter of a century to when another SMU golfer stated his case as the very best at the Open.
Twitter/X: @TimCowlishaw.