Bryson DeChambeau’s remarkable body transformation has been the talk of the PGA Tour over the last few seasons but now that the player has had over a full season to adapt to his new physique, is there conclusive proof to show that it has paid off for him?
This is a player who, after all, gained an astonishing 44 pounds of muscle in just over nine months which effectively turned him into the heaviest golfer on tour after tipping the scales at 240 pounds.
You can all of a sudden see why the change in DeChambeau’s physical appearance has dominated discussion on the tour but as briefly touched on, has it paid dividends?
Perhaps our first port of call should be what is currently being predicted for the 28-year-old in terms of future success in order to establish the current mood around his form.
The latest Masters odds is a good place to start and tell an eye-opening story with the Californian given a fairly long price of 28/1 to win his first green jacket.
Those are revealing odds given that the course where the Masters is played, Augusta National, tends to favour players who are long off the tee.
Now, there isn’t a player on tour who hits it further than DeChambeau since his impressive transformation in the gym with the 28-year-old topping the driving distance stats on the PGA Tour for the 2021 season.
In fact, it was the second year in a row that DeChambeau ended up at the summit of world golf’s driving stats.
However, over these two seasons that the golfer has been hitting it further than anyone, DeChambeau was only able to record two victories.
Admittedly, there were notable ones with the 28-year-old winning the 2020 US Open as well as the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard in March 2021.
Whilst those are some of the biggest competitions you can win, in the years prior to 2020 before DeChambeau embarked on upping his muscle mass, he had recorded six victories whilst weighing just 194 pounds.
Put another way, since reaching 240 pounds, DeChambeau has only managed to win twice and is currently going through the leanest spell in terms of winning silverware that he has ever endured in his career.
This could, of course, change in the future but then again after digesting the above paragraph, it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that DeChambeau’s game has indeed ended up suffering since he decided to bulk up.
Significantly, that invaluable maneuverability that his swing had seems to have gone and instead, been replaced by raw power which is ultimately not proving enough of a weapon to help him win trophies.
Worryingly, there is no quick fix in terms of going back to the weight that he was when he was winning multiple trophies every season and, in short, DeChambeau will have to find a way to become more consistent whilst carrying this extra muscle.
There are lessons to be learned here in terms of not trying to reinvent the wheel or indeed fix what wasn’t broken but at the same time, DeChambeau is young enough to eventually find his way back into the winner’s circle.