Talk about stating the bleedin’ obvious! I am not a huge fan of Nick Faldo but he got it spot on when he suggested that Bryson DeChambeau has no clue when it comes to course strategy.
That may seem like a pretty strange thing to say about a two-time major champion but it reflects something I have been saying about the American for years.
When will the penny drop? When will he finally realise that there is more to golf at this level than trying to bully courses into submission?
You cannot win The Open without a strategic approach, without a detailed plan - and it does not involve brute force.
When Tiger Woods won The Open at St Andrews in 2000 he did so without finding a single bunker. Over the course of 72 holes, that is remarkable and was the key to his victory. If you have ever played the Old Course, you will know just how difficult it is to avoid all the bunkers.
And when Woods won The Open for a third time at Hoylake in 2006 he used his driver just once all week. He had a strategy and he stuck to it.
Remember that Woods hit the ball further than any of his rivals but he knew that he had to put the ball in the right place if he wanted to win, and he refused to deviate from what he knew was a winning strategy.
I have played a LOT of links golf and the one thing I have worked out above all else is that to have any chance of scoring well you simply must keep the ball on the fairway.
Why does DeChambeau find it so difficult to reach this conclusion? You are going to get freaky bounces on all links courses and the further off line you are the worse the position you are going to find yourself in.
(Image Credit: LIV Golf)
DeChambeau is not a stupid man - far from it! But even he must have worked out by now that what he is doing is not working. It tells you everything you need to know that while he has been missing the cut in the majors, he continues to enjoy success in LIV’s tournaments. That, of course, is because the courses used by LIV have little or no rough.
He can get away with smashing the ball as hard as possible but then he comes to the majors, tries the same approach and comes to grief. You can’t keep doing the same thing and expect the results to be different.
