It was only a run-of-the-mill PGA Tour win against a run-of-the-mill field, but Bryson DeChambeau wore his victory at the Rocket Mortgage Classic like a crown.
And why not? For the first time in his five professional seasons, Bryson is — for the moment, at least — the king of golf. After three straight top-10s following the PGA Tour’s restart (10 of his first 12 rounds since the restart were in the 60s; he shot 70 in the other two rounds), DeChambeau broke through in Detroit with all the savvy and technique of Kool-Aid Man bursting through a brick wall. DeChambeau’s calculus of bulking up and bullying his way around golf courses has worked. The Detroit win won’t go on his Hall of Fame resume’, but it gave DeChambeau what he craves most: validation.
DeChambeau has always done things his own way, but that fact alone doesn’t touch the depths of his psyche. His quirks — single-length irons, side-saddle putting, on-course geometry, and now his physical self-reinvention — have never been only about finding a way that’s right for him. DeChambeau has sought something more: acknowledgement that his way is best — not just right for him, but right. Even at the beginning of his pro career, he promised not merely to make his mark in golf, but to change golf itself.
“You look at trends in humanity and people like following the norm,” DeChambeau told the Associated Press in 2016. “You’ve got people out there like Einstein, George Washington — they just stood out and capitalized on their differences and showed the world a little different side.” DeChambeau has always craved not only being an innovator, but being acknowledged as an innovator.
A desire for acknowledgement can spring from ambition. Or it can spring from insecurity. DeChambeau talks like someone hounded by both.
Through his yearning for acceptance, DeChambeau has contorted himself into a maze of contradictions, all of which were on full view in Detroit. He is neither a nice guy (as his juvenile rant against a cameraman showed) nor a villain (villainy requires a minimal degree of cunning); he is both captivating and dull; full of questions yet painfully self-unaware.
The most painful of DeChambeau’s contradictions, though, must be his yearning for approval while being unable to control frequently childish behavior. DeChambeau is nothing if not unlikeable; yet being liked is what he craves most of all.
Andy Johnson and Kevin Van Valkenburg have suggested (convincingly) that the roots of DeChambeau’s physical transformation might stretch to his confrontation with Brooks Koepka at Liberty National in 2019. After Koepka complained about DeChambeau’s famously glacial pace of play, DeChambeau publicly challenged Koepka — at the time, the Tour’s most physically intimidating figure — to confront him in person. Koepka did; and the public takeaway was that DeChambeau had been backed down. By working to match Koepka’s physique, DeChambeau perhaps killed two birds with one stone: preventing future humiliation, and allowing himself a new avenue for perceived innovation.
Someone racked by such mixed motivations will always have a hard time keeping his story straight. And even in Detroit, with his victory minted just moments earlier, DeChambeau felt the tension. In his post-round interview with CBS Sports’ Amanda Balionis, she asked him to describe the victory’s reaffirmation. The validation that he craved was in his grasp at last, and his first urge was to make sure the world saw it.
“You know,” he began slowly, “as much as I want to — be selfish,” he continued,
“ — it’s really not,” he said, his superego finally wresting control of his mouth. “It’s the exact opposite. I wanted people to see a different playing style of the game. I knew there was an opportunity to do that, and I wanted to show people that if you work hard, do your best, and give everything you’ve got, you can achieve amazing things.” I’ve worked hard, given everything I’ve got, and have achieved amazing things. But it’s not about me.
That inner conflict is why DeChambeau took such offense to a cameraman witnessing his tantrum on Saturday: because the “brand” that DeChambeau wants to present to the world, and the one he feared being damaged, is his own idealized vision of himself. He doesn’t like himself when he’s not perfect, and he’s afraid no one else will either.
That DeChambeau’s prodigious talent and his now-otherworldly length will continue to afford chances to achieve amazing things seems inevitable. Whether that will be enough for him is less clear. Because most of all, DeChambeau wants to be liked. But becoming a likable, comfortable version of himself would be DeChambeau’s most remarkable innovation of all.