Written by Stephen Moloney (www.twitter.com/TheCheeky9)
Having been steadily watching both the European and PGA Tour seasons unfold since September, it’s safe to say that Bryson DeChambeau and the physical transformation he’s undergone has been the most talked about subject in golf over the last few months. In broadcast after broadcast of whatever tournament he’s been playing in, whether it be his intense workout regimen, his calorie-packed diet or the latest eye-witness reports from his fellow pros who’ve stopped by on the range to see him crank out monster drives with 200mp/h ball speed, Bryson’s name has never been too far from the announcers’ mouths – and, in reality, you can’t blame them. Because, this year, the driver cap-toting Californian has been making for blockbuster viewing, not only because of how far he’s been hitting the golf ball but because of the results he’s been backing those awe-inspiring drives up with.
I mean, since the start of the season, Bryson has played in 13 official events. And of that ‘Baker’s Dozen’-worth of tournaments, he’s only missed the cut twice (‘Abu Dhabi-HSBC Championship’ & ‘A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier’); finished in a tie for 52nd at the Waste Management Phoenix Open the week after coming back from the Middle East; and then otherwise had 9 top 10’s & a win at the Rocket Mortgage Classic. Like, by any one’s standards, that’s a cracking season.
And yet, amidst the wonderment at how far he’s been sending his golf ball sailing away from tee boxes around the United States – and especially so since he converted his incredible form into a win at Detroit – there appears to be two conflicting narratives after emerging in relation to Bryson and his newfound ability to pulverize golf balls with his driver: one being that he’s been driving it really accurately for how far he’s been hitting it, but then on the other side, an argument that he’s been merely ‘bombing & gouging’ his way around golf courses to get to where he is.
So which one is it?
Well, let’s try to find out.
The Strategy
Now, given I’ve been watching Bryson consistently throughout the year since he rocked up in Abu Dhabi at the beginning of January for the first of his two-stop layover in the desert, I can say that from a purely anecdotal perspective, I’m on the side of the argument where I think he’s actually been hitting quite accurately for the distances he’s been producing. And when he has missed the fairways? I can, admittedly, think of a few occasions off-hand where he’s gone somewhat ‘off-planet’ with his drives, but for the most part any misses that he has had, have just been regular old “missed fairways” that any golfer has over the course of a tournament – except, of course, he’s been missing them 20-30 yards further up the fairway than the majority of his playing partners.
Yet, as all ‘well & good’ as that is, it’s not cold, hard data – so let’s get into how I’m going to do this.
First, as Bryson is now sitting 7th in the World Rankings, I’m going to compare his driving stats against those of his fellow top 10 players (those currently in there as of this week, at any rate) & rank them 1st to 10th to give a general idea of how they all stack up against one another.
Then, given his particular success over the last four weeks, I’m going to examine Bryson’s driving accuracy in the Charles Schwab Challenge, RBC Heritage, Travelers Championship & Rocket Mortgage Classic in comparison to the player with the best driving accuracy in that event and the eventual winner of the tournament (or, in the case of Detroit, the runner-up) to see how those numbers stack up.
General Driving Stats
| Driving Distance | Rounds | Average | No. of Drives |
| Bryson DeChambeau (1st) | 42 | 323.0 | 84 |
| Rory McIlroy (2nd) | 36 | 313.9 | 56 |
| Adam Scott (3rd) | 26 | 310.3 | 36 |
| Brooks Koepka (4th) | 22 | 308.8 | 40 |
| Dustin Johnson (5th) | 26 | 306.3 | 52 |
| Jon Rahm (6th) | 30 | 305.5 | 60 |
| Justin Thomas (7th) | 38 | 302.7 | 60 |
| Patrick Cantlay (8th) | 24 | 300.6 | 48 |
| Webb Simpson (9th) | 30 | 298.4 | 60 |
| Patrick Reed (10th) | 42 | 294.4 | 68 |
| Driving Accuracy % | Rounds | % | Fairways Hit | Possible Fairways |
| Webb Simpson (1st) | 30 | 68.33 | 287 | 420 |
| Patrick Cantlay (2nd) | 24 | 66.08 | 224 | 339 |
| Jon Rahm (3rd) | 30 | 65.33 | 277 | 424 |
| Dustin Johnson (4th) | 26 | 64.03 | 235 | 367 |
| Bryson DeChambeau (5th) | 42 | 61.05 | 359 | 588 |
| Justin Thomas (6th) | 38 | 58.08 | 309 | 532 |
| Rory McIlroy (7th) | 36 | 57.60 | 288 | 500 |
| Patrick Reed (8th) | 42 | 56.46 | 332 | 588 |
| Adam Scott (9th) | 26 | 54.44 | 196 | 360 |
| Brooks Koepka (10th) | 22 | 54.22 | 167 | 308 |
It makes for pretty interesting reading, doesn’t it? As we know, however, these figures (and I’m really just referring to the accuracy stats here) aren’t exactly perfect. Not every golfer has played the exact same amount of times and hit the exact same amount of drives, so we can’t draw 100% infallible conclusions, but, regardless, they make for a good general insight into how adept DeChambeau has been at finding the short grass even though his average driving distance is the longest of his fellow top tenners.
To try and give us a more detailed insight into how he’s been faring at shifting his golf ball off-the-tee, though, let’s take a look at two more categories: ‘Average Distance from the Centre of the Fairway’ & ‘Average Distance from the Edge of the Fairway’, i.e. how generally accurate is he when he’s been finding the fairway & how offline/far into the rough is he when he doesn’t.
| Distance from Centre of Fairway | Events | Average |
| Rory McIlroy (1st) | 9 | 24’ 0” |
| Bryson DeChambeau (2nd) | 11 | 24’ 5” |
| Webb Simpson (3rd) | 8 | 25’ 0” |
| Jon Rahm (4th) | 8 | 25’ 4” |
| Patrick Reed (5th) | 12 | 25’ 9” |
| Adam Scott (6th) | 7 | 26’ 0” |
| Brooks Koepka (7th) | 7 | 27’ 3” |
| Justin Thomas (8th) | 11 | 27’ 6” |
| Dustin Johnson (9th) | 7 | 28’ 10” |
| Patrick Cantlay (10th) | 6 | 30’ 5” |
| Distance from Edge of Fairway | Events | Average |
| Jon Rahm (1st) | 8 | 22’ 8” |
| Patrick Reed (2nd) | 12 | 23’ 10” |
| Rory McIlroy (3rd) | 9 | 24’ 9” |
| Webb Simpson (4th) | 8 | 25’ 0” |
| Adam Scott (5th) | 7 | 26’ 5” |
| Dustin Johnson (6th) | 7 | 28’ 3” |
| Patrick Cantlay (7th) | 6 | 28’ 9” |
| Brooks Koepka (8th) | 7 | 30’ 2” |
| Bryson DeChambeau (9th) | 11 | 30’ 8” |
| Justin Thomas (10th) | 11 | 31’ 0” |
Again, really interesting reading. So, when DeChambeau has been finding the fairway, he’s been doing a pretty good job of getting it close to right down the middle as he’s 2nd overall amongst the top 10. And when he hasn’t been finding the fairway? Well, whilst 9th overall amongst the other top 10 players, I think we do have to take into consideration the fact that, apart from Reed with 12 – and alongside Thomas with 11 – DeChambeau has played the most events amongst the ten, so you could therefore argue that he’s had more opportunities to actually miss fairways. Plus, when you take into consideration that, of the ten, Rahm has managed to wind up closest to the fairway when he gets a tad errant off-the-tee with an average total of only 22’ 8”, given Bryson has been hitting it, on average, a good 18 yards further than the Spaniard, the fact he’s only wound up with an extra 8 feet on his total, with three more events under his belt, is again pretty impressive.
So it would appear then that, when compared to the best players in the world, Bryson’s performance off-the-tee this season, across the board, has been more than stacking up. Now, however, let’s take a look at how Bryson fared over the last four weeks.
The Past Month
As mentioned in the opening of this article, in this section I’m going to compare Bryson’s driving accuracy (& overall rank) over the last month of tournaments to that of the player with the best driving accuracy in each event (marked with an *) and that of the eventual winner (or runner-up in the case of the Rocket Mortgage Classic).
What I’m also going to do, though, is show each golfer’s average driving distance for the tournament (& the overall ranking that number got them that week), plus their ultimate finishing position, just to round out the picture a little more – it won’t do it entirely, of course, as golf is a game of nuances, but it’ll still be useful.
| Charles Schwab Challenge | Finishing Place | Average Driving Distance (Ranking) | Driving Accuracy % (Ranking) | Fairways Hit | Possible Fairways |
| Daniel Berger | 1st | 306.1 (22nd) | 62.50 (T-17) | 35 | 56 |
| Bryson DeChambeau | T-3 | 340.4 (1st) | 58.93 (T-28) | 33 | 56 |
| Lucas Glover * | T-23 | 297.4 (41st) | 80.36 (1st) | 45 | 56 |
| RBC Heritage | Finishing Place | Average Driving Distance (Ranking) | Driving Accuracy %(Ranking) | Fairways Hit | Possible Fairways |
| Webb Simpson | 1st | 283.0 (33rd) | 67.86 (T-33) | 38 | 56 |
| Bryson DeChambeau | T-8 | 295.9 (7th) | 67.86 (T-33) | 38 | 56 |
| Abraham Ancer * | 2nd | 278.1 (48th) | 82.14 (T-1) | 46 | 56 |
| Travelers Championship | Finishing Place | Average Driving Distance (Ranking) | Driving Accuracy % (Ranking) | Fairways Hit | Possible Fairways |
| Dustin Johnson | 1st | 303.0 (28th) | 62.50 (T-47) | 35 | 56 |
| Bryson DeChambeau | T-6 | 316.6 (4th) | 62.50 (T-47) | 35 | 56 |
| Brendon Todd | T-11 | 291.0 (T-58) | 91.07 (1st) | 51 | 56 |
| Rocket Mortgage Classic | Finishing Place | Average Driving Distance (Ranking) | Driving Accuracy % (Ranking) | Fairways Hit | Possible Fairways |
| Bryson DeChambeau | 1st | 350.6 (1st) | 58.93 (T-58) | 33 | 56 |
| Matthew Wolff | 2nd | 326.4 (5th) | 69.64 (T-25) | 39 | 56 |
| Henrik Norlander * | T-12 | 297.1 (49th) | 85.71 (1sdsst) | 48 | 56 |
Admittedly, there’s a lot of information to digest there, but what I find the most striking is the following:
(i) Though he didn’t win the Charles Schwab Challenge, Bryson – at a course that wasn’t supposed to suit him – only hit two fewer fairways than Daniel Berger did, even though he led the field in ‘Driving Distance’ for the week and was, on average, hitting it 34.3 yards further than Berger.
(ii) In the weeks where we saw the RBC Heritage & Travelers Championship go back-to-back, Bryson matched both Webb Simpson and Dustin Johnson for the number of fairways hit during the week but did so whilst driving further than the pair of them, 12.9 & 13.6 yards respectively.
(iii) At the Rocket Mortgage Classic, though he was driving it a whole ten yards further, on average, than what he was at the Charles Schwab Challenge – which makes sense given Detroit Golf Club wasn’t as tight as Colonial & had far longer holes – Bryson still only missed the same amount of fairways (23) as he did in Texas and paid just six more visits to the rough than, eventual runner-up, Matthew Wolff.
The Takeaway
I think whatever way you look at it, when you break down the actual numbers of what Bryson DeChambeau has been doing off-the-tee over the course of the season and the last four weeks, it really is impressive. Like, given the amount of golf he’s actually been playing and the distance he’s been hitting the ball, for him to be leading the other top 10 players in the world when it comes to overall ‘Driving Distance’, yet still be ranked fifth amongst them in ‘Driving Accuracy’ is pretty damn impressive. Plus, when you take into consideration that in the last four weeks, in the three where he didn’t win he only missed two more fairways than Berger at Colonial and matched Simpson & Johson for ‘fairways hit’ at Harbour Town & TPC River Highlands just puts an exclamation point on the question which prompted this entire article in the first place:
Given how far he’s been hitting the ball, has Bryson DeChambeau actually been driving it all that accurately?
Well, when compared to his peers in the top 10 and three of the last four winners on tour, the answer is a resounding ‘yes’.
Title Photo Credit: PGA Tour
Data sourced from PGATour.com