Brooks Koepka may have won two Majors this year, but no one on the PGA Tour has been hotter than Bryson DeChambeau this summer. With three victories since June -- and currently in second place on the tour’s 2018 money list -- the 24-year-old phenom is perhaps best known for his scientific approach to life. Including how he chooses golf equipment. He has a Bachelor’s degree in physics from SMU, so it should surprise no one that his golf bag is made up differently than any other player’s on tour. For starters, he plays an entire set of Cobra Golf irons in which each club is the same length -- about that of a 7-iron. Rumor has it that he also has physics equations engraved into his wedges.
All that aside, I wondered how he went about the process of selecting something as simple as a golf ball to use on the course. Turns out his approach is predictably unique. Says Elliot Mellow, golf marketing manager at Bridgestone, the brand that makes DeChambeau’s TOUR B X model golf ball: “He’s a perfectionist and in his mind, there is always room for improvement.” Maybe you saw the recent video that surfaced of him down on his knees in anguish over some driving range shots he mis-hit after a round? Or read about how he has someone spray his range balls with water, to simulate hitting in dewy morning conditions.
“When I test a golf ball, I like to see how it reacts in a variety of different situations,” says DeChambeau. “It’s one thing to see what it does on the range under normal conditions, but I want to know how it performs on different lies, in windy situations, in different weather conditions, and out of different turf conditions. I’m trying to understand how the ball reacts in adverse situations. It’s all about minimizing variance and standard deviation. The TOUR B X checks all those boxes for me.”
Adds Mellow: “One thing that stands out is the variety of shots he tests a ball with. For instance, with the 8-iron he tests full swing shots as well as figures out what happens if he chokes down, tries to take spin off, or go with a softer swing. He’s always looking at all the possible scenarios he would encounter on the course and getting an understanding of how the ball performs under all those conditions. Not one other PGA Tour pro does it to the extreme that Bryson does. One particular ball he loved the distance of, but thought it went too high. So he told us that the Cobra reps were hating this because he wanted them to tweak some of his clubs to fit the ball.”
When testing out golf balls, DeChambeau works from tee to green, in that order. That’s not unusual. But what is unique is the amount of testing he puts in. With drivers -- which some pros hit 40 shots and call it a day, according to Mellow -- DeChambeau tries low draws, straight shots, the whole gamut. He’s looking for exact carry distance and trajectory, while also looking at how the ball lands. “He looks at how much the spin rate changes, from the best to the worst shot,” says Mellow. “He wants to know everything. Performance characteristics of a ball is high on his wish list, especially a consistent spin rate across all shots.” With the 4-iron, he’s seeking high ball speed. On short irons, he’s testing how the ball holds the green. At the short end of the bag, he performs thorough flight tests with 90-yard shots, and then 40. He also tests balls with his putter.
“The data is so important for Bryson to understand,” says Adam Rehberg, who leads Bridgestone’s ball fitting program. “Most tour guys are getting more ingrained in numbers, but they’re all about feel. For Bryson, data drives his feel and backs up what he’s feeling at impact. He gets more granular with the test shots he hits. Being a numbers guy, he wants to see real-world data when he hits a cut shot or half shot, he wants to know exactly how much spin he’s taking off the ball. And that’s where he’s different. The last time we tested him, he was capturing data simultaneous to ours on his own launch monitor. He has his own research and development team -- it’s him.”
DeChambeau is not just Bridgestone's tour staffer -- he also gets involved in product design. “He bounces ideas off of us a lot,” adds Mellow. “We work well in advance of what’s in the market, so Bryson’s just started looking at our 2020 balls. And he’s already been in touch with us twice, with ideas.”
