![](\"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Reportajes_Bryson-DeChambeau.jpg\")
How is it possible for a 22-year-old amateur to make the world\u2019s number one, three, five and six players bite the dust in one of the biggest tournaments of the year? Just ask the phenom, American Bryson DeChambeau, who beat Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and Henrik Stenson and Rickie Fowler on the opening day of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship (late February) with an insurmountable round of 64 that put him in the lead (he would finish the tournament in 54th place). <\/p>\n
An intrigued McIlroy peeked into Bryson\u2019s bag and was amazed at the set of clubs it contained. And he was in for a surprise when he saw those \u2018gadgets\u2019 that looked like they had come out of a sweatshop, given their handcrafted appearance. <\/p>\n
DeChembau is no stranger. Far from it. He is the current U.S. amateur champion and the fifth player in history to win that title and the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) title in the same year, thus joining the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods and Ryan Moore. And last year he also made a splash when, competing against pros at the Australian Masters, he finished second to Peter Senior. <\/p>\n
Bryson, son of one of California\u2019s top amateur golfers, says he\u2019s doing an internship of sorts before turning pro, which he plans to do after he plays in the Masters in April, a tournament he\u2019s invited to as the reigning U.S. Amateur champion. He will be one of the most talked about players at Augusta National. <\/p>\n
DeChambeau defines himself as \u201ca golf scientist\u201d. He is a senior studying physics at Southern Methodist University and, apart from his excellent sporting results, he has become famous for having developed unique irons, those that fascinated McIlroy so much when they played together in the third round in Abu Dhabi. <\/p>\n
There are several revolutionary changes that the young Californian has applied to his clubs. For example, each of his irons, whether it\u2019s a 3-iron or a wedge, measures the same, 37.5 inches, as a 6-iron. And then there\u2019s the grip, a strikingly thick grip that holds more using the palms of his hands than his fingers. It looks more like a racquet grip than a golf club grip. <\/p>\n
Another thing: all irons have the same angle of the shaft with respect to the club head, very closed, so that the shaft comes out very vertical from the club head. This uniformity also conditions its swing, very vertical. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey work really well,\u201d Bryson says of his \u2018strange creatures.\u2019 \u201cThey help me keep the same posture, the same position, everything the same, and they give me pretty good performance.\u201d <\/p>\n
Bryson got the idea for these peculiar clubs from the book \u201cThe Golfing Machine,\u201d which Homer Kelly, a Seattle aircraft mechanic, published in 1969 with his own money.<\/p>\n
A California golf professor, Mike Schy, read the book and was intrigued by Kelly\u2019s theory of \u201clinearly oriented geometric force\u201d and the impact it could have on a golf ball.<\/p>\n
Bryson worked with his coach to refine the clubs to suit his game. \u201cIt\u2019s a long story, but long story short I chose the variation of the golf machine that would allow me to swing on the same plane,\u201d he explains. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then,\u201d he continues, \u201cI realized I couldn\u2019t do it with a wedge and a 3-iron because it would involve changing my body movements. It didn\u2019t make sense, so I said to myself, \u2018Why don\u2019t we do them all at the same angle and the same size?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How is it possible for a 22-year-old amateur to make the world\u2019s number one, three, five and six players bite the dust in one of the biggest tournaments of the year? Just ask the phenom, American Bryson DeChambeau, who beat Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and Henrik Stenson and Rickie Fowler on the opening day of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[131],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andaluciagolf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}