· - Augusta National favors long hitters – of the eight champions with more than two Masters wins, four of the top five were the longest hitters of their day (Nicklaus, Woods, Palmer, Snead).
· -DeChambeau is a long hitter; he is averaging 344.4 yards per drive this PGA season, 12 yards more than his closest competitor.
· -Augusta National does not punish less than accurate drivers – see Phil Mickelson with 3 Masters wins (only two other major championships- 54% driving accuracy, rank 182, in 2020), and Bubba Watson with 2 wins at Augusta (no other majors wins; made the cut in 10 of 11 Masters, missed the cut in 19 of 39 other majors played, with two top ten finishes in only 2 of the other 39 majors; averaged 58% driving accuracy in each season from 2018 through 2020, sitting at 57% currently in 2021 tour stats).
· -Of the other big hitters in the field who averaged more yards off the tee than DeChambeau at Winged Foot (Dustin Johnson, Matthew Wolff, Jon Rahm, Rory) all have significant mental baggage at the Masters. None have won at Augusta; DJ has finished in the top ten (2nd last year) in his last 4 Masters, but has not been able to close the deal; Rory’s collapse in 2011 at Augusta is legendary and his best finish since then is 4th in 2015, so the Career Slam remains elusive; Rahm has made the cut in all three of his Masters’ appearances and did finish 4th in 2018; however, in the final round he got to within two shots of leader and eventual winner Patrick Reed before dunking his approach to the 15th green. Perhaps his remarkable hole-in-one at the 16th hole in this year’s practice round will move the Masters mojo in his direction. Matthew Wolff is a Masters rookie; the last golfer to win the Masters in his first try was Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979.
· -The Scientist dusted all of the above in the final round of the U.S. Open in September.
· -DeChambeau knows what the coefficient of restitution, or COR, means. I didn’t know about it until yesterday, and am still not sure I know what it means. ( It appears to have something to do with the “trampoline effect” when the face of a golf club meets the golf ball. Apparently, a higher COR measurement in a golf club generally equates to more distance of the shot. As a result, PGA rules limit the COR in golf clubs to .830 (1.000 is the maximum COR according the laws of physics, I am told. For an excellent explanation, see here. )
· -DeChambeau wears a Ben Hogan style cap during tournament play, also sported by the late Payne Stewart.
· -DeChambeau is the slowest player on the planet. He takes an inordinate time to measure and “compute” all the data for each shot, regardless of location on the golf course. Normally, that would incur this blogger’s wrath, as there are very few things in life more aggravating than being stuck behind (or with) slow players on a golf course. However, to accommodate CBS’s coverage of Sunday’s NFL games, coverage of the Masters final round will begin at 10:00 AM EST and thus end at approximately 2:30 PM, as opposed to ending with the traditional Sunday evening green jacket ceremony pushing over into 60 Minutes and prime time programming. CBS’s NFL coverage will thus begin with the 4:05 games. So it would not bother me one whit to imagine the suits at Black Rock in New York squirming as tournament leader DeChambeau in the final pairing lines up his last putt at 4:15 on Sunday.
· -PGA rules limit the height of a tee peg to 4 inches. DeChambeau, as is his wont, pushes the boundaries and uses a 4-inch tee for his drives, higher than those used by his competitors. (He also doesn’t ground the driver behind the ball at address. Let me guess: calculations about launch rate and spin rate, maybe even Smash Rate, at work here.) Let’s see if he can continue this delicate regimen as he gets older.
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| Tee It High, Let It Fly |
All in all, the stars, and stats, appear to be aligned for BDC to conquer Augusta National this week. And I believe he will.
AMDG
© R. E. Kelly 2012 -2020
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