Bryson DeChambeau stirred up some pace-of-play controversy during his presser prior to the Masters.
On Wednesday, DeChambeau was asked by one reporter in the media center where the balance between trying to play at a good pace and getting all the information he likes to gather lies. His answer was to deflect the issue of his slow play off himself and onto others.
DECHAMBEAU: Well, that’s a great question. I think we do a fantastic job of taking all the information we can in the allotted amount of time.
Now the one piece of information that a lot of people miss is the walk to the ball. There’s a three‑minute walk, 2 1/2 minute walk that people don’t take into account. You can gain a lot more time by walking 15 seconds quicker to the ball than you can by five seconds over a shot.
So people don’t take that into account when we talk about slow play. I may be a guy that hits it up there farther than someone, and they are taking their merry time getting to their golf ball and it’s behind me and I’m already up there and I can’t get any of my numbers because I’m right in their line of sight.
Once they do their whole process that takes maybe 25 seconds compared to my 35‑second to 40‑second preparation to hit the shot, by the time we walk back over and get the number, do all that, you can view me as a slow player.
In the end I look at it from another standpoint saying there’s a whole other piece to this puzzle that we are not looking at yet.
So basically what DeChambeau is saying is that because he out-drives guys and then is forced to either stand next to his ball or wait back up the fairway that he isn’t slow and that him being forced to wait for others is the reason he is often put on the clock.
That makes no sense because the clock doesn’t start ticking until you reach your ball and DeChambeau easily takes a minute or more to assess each shot.
Even Brooks pointed it out in a recent interview.
“It is frustrating. There’s a lot of slow players, a lot of them are kind of the very good players, too, which is kind of the problem. I think it’s weird how we have rules where we have to make sure it’s dropping from knee height or the caddie can’t be behind you and then they also have a rule where you have to hit it in 40 seconds, but that one’s not enforced. You enforce some but you don’t enforce the others.
“Usually, if you’re put on the clock it’s ’cause you’re slow, and guys keep being put on the clock, keep doing it, keep doing it but no one ever has the balls to actually penalize them.”
Look, we all know that DeChambeau is trying to deflect the blame away from himself so he doesn’t look as slow, but we also have eyes and can see who takes longer once they reach their ball. DeChambeau isn’t DJ and that’s ok. He doesn’t have to hit the ball immediately, but he can’t blame guys walking to their balls as a part of the reason he is slow once he gets to his own.
[HT Shack]