The whingeing, whining and gnashing of teeth over this US Open’s outcome promise to be more entertaining than the closing stages of its 120th edition. Bryson DeChambeau is a major winner. He holds as many US Open titles as Tom Watson and Gary Player, which is one more than Seve Ballesteros and Nick Faldo. The professor is not so nutty after all. He may, in fact, have changed the shape of golf inside four competitive rounds.
History will show that in a typically brutal US Open fourth round, DeChambeau lapped the field at Winged Foot. His 67 and six-under total ensured a half-dozen stroke victory over Matthew Wolff. The 27-year-old DeChambeau was the only player in the 61-man field to break par on day four.
DeChambeau is the third player, after Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, to win the US college individual title, US amateur and US Open. “It’s just an honour,” he said. “I don’t know what else to say. It’s been a lot of hard work. To be in that company is special. I’ll for ever appreciate that.”
The backdrop, though, was one of horrendous sniping. DeChambeau has made no apologies for bulking up – with 20lb worth of muscle – thereby handing himself an ability to overpower courses. Traditionalists object to that, with the debate rather irrelevant until he made this breakthrough.
