The Metropolitan
September/Octobeer
Distance and deliberatio The Bogeyman Dan O’Neill - Editor I started getting out of bed this morning, but caught myself just in time. I stopped, reached over to the nightstand, picked up my little green book and checked on the distance and slope my feet would need to negotiate to successfully land on the floor. Fortified with that information, I was able to go ahead and initiate my move to stand up. Sound crazy? Not if you watched Bryson DeChambeau win the U.S. Open. Interestingly enough, that victory became all about distance. One person proposes a narrative and it becomes gospel, proselytized and spread across all media platforms. So you already know the story - DeChambeau walloped Winged Foot with tape-measure blows. But statistically, he wasn’t even the longest hitter in the championship. According to the USGA stats, six players averaged more yardage off the tee. Much more germane than DeChambeau’s power off the tee was his power and precision from the rough. Forty-three percent of the fairways translated into 64 percent of the greens for “Bison.” He won because he could hit approach shots a mile high and land them on Winged Foot’s wobbly greens, U.S. Open rough notwithstanding. He won with terrific putting and, most importantly, with unflappable composure. Bobby Jones once said, “Nobody wins the U.S. Open, everybody else just loses it.” DeChambeau never faltered mentally, while all those around him crumbled. It wasn’t unorthodox, it was classic. But for the purposes of this narrative, it’s the manner in which DeChamslow won that bears further examination. Watching the finish at Mamaroneck was like watching a rush-hour bottleneck, like curing insomnia, like tracking the gestation period of an African elephant (22 months). Not to pick on DeChambeau. He’s not the only sloth, just the most obvious. At Winged Foot, he was contending for a major championship, so some ponderation is understandable. But as a certain presidential candidate puts it, “C’mon man! Is it really necessary for you and your caddy to reference books and pause to do math - in front of a 10-foot putt? Would it be possible to give it a good look, from both ends if you like, and just roll it? Again, the player is not so much to blame. There’s a lot of money on the 8
table. You push the envelope as far you’re allow only sport allowing itself to be overwhelmed wit at what’s happened to baseball. Equations have taken over the game, created ever contact for launch angles, compromised eyeballs nonstop pitching changes. The radar gun is a maximize effort and detonate elbows. The statist Even the language has changed. You don’t thro “execute in the zone.” You don’t get a hold of on barrel out.” If Pete Rose played today, he’d be known as “ Energy Exertion,” not “Charlie Hustle.” The sam golf. Swing speed, spin rates, loft angles, strokesAll of these things have a place, to be sure. Bu expression in the game that addresses the d analytics and application, and what happens whe . That is, “paralysis by analysis.” In today’s game, the concept doesn’t just apply also applies to pace of play. Feel, instinct, dedu staples of golf, talents acquired through practi they are purchased at the pro shop, found in finders. The mind was something to be kept unencumbe the range, latch on to a swing thought, and off stupid. Now a PGA Tour player has to check his books the same. Now it’s a formula, to be considered, c Keep it simple stupid has become “take your tim What’s more, the surrender to analysis is dising one to consult these tools, but not seek advice fro What if the guy who created the yardage book advice? What if the guy who wrote the greens bo advice? We could go on, but there is pace of play issues w Those who assessed DeChambeau’s win at Wing are predicting biblical episodes at Augusta. They i well to buy up more property and extend the fai Jones Expressway. They believe America’s Golf C thinking the greens might beg to differ. But if this all about power and analytics, the po hire street artisans, install amusement rides and galleries … when there are galleries. Golf is goi keep people entertained. Because let’s face it, the DeChambeau approach impressive … but only if you can stay awake lon
