Rozner: U.S. Open champ DeChambeau will continue on his own path

The bomb-and-gouge philosophy is not new to the PGA Tour.

It's been part of the program for years, the likes of Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, Cam Champ and Gary Woodland understanding that hitting it far and digging it out is well worth the risk.

Tiger Woods did it for 20 years when he was longer and stronger than everyone else.

A wedge from the rough - the current crop has decided - is better than a long iron from the fairway, but it's not supposed to work in the U.S. Open.

History suggests that is impossible, the punishment for missing fairways a very, very bad week of golf.

Welcome to the world of Bryson DeChambeau, who bulked up in the off-season, added more muscle during the shutdown and has now overpowered the USGA, something previously thought impossible.

The guess here was that it could work if he ever matched his wedge play to his driver, and that is indeed what he did at Winged Foot in winning the U.S. Open in a Sunday runaway.

With 23 fairways over four days, it is the fewest hit by a U.S. Open winner since 1981, when the stat was first counted.

Yikes.

It doesn't work if you don't putt and you don't scramble, something DeChambeau was not doing as late as the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields two weeks before the National Championship.

DeChambeau finished 50th out of 70 and was never a factor, the difficult course eating up his drives in the long rough, and DeChambeau unable to scramble his way into the tournament.

For the just-concluded PGA Tour season, DeChambeau was first in strokes-gained off the tee and in driving distance, but 119th in approach and 111th in strokes-gained around the greens.

He could bomb, but he couldn't gouge. The plan wasn't working.

At Olympia Fields, out of 70 players he was 64th in greens hit, 69th in driving accuracy and 58th in strokes-gained around the greens, while first in driving distance.

He putted well, but it did not translate into contention because he wasn't scrambling or hitting greens.

At Winged Foot, he made an adjustment with his wedges - opening the blade a few degrees around the greens - and it changed everything.

Just like that he was fifth in greens hit at Winged Foot to go along with 11th in putting and seventh in driving distance. Matt Wolff - who finished second - hit it slightly farther over four rounds, but DeChambeau picked up 4 strokes vs. Wolff on and around the greens.

Talk about huge.

Wolff somehow shot a 5-under third round with an extraordinary 6 birdies despite hitting two of 14 fairways, but that sort of escape isn't sustainable, right? It wasn't on Sunday for Wolff. It caught up to him, yet DeChambeau kept plowing the field.

DeChambeau hit six fairways Sunday and still managed 11 greens in regulation, picking up 2 shots on Wolff just in approach, as he shot a 3-under final round to Wolff's 5-over par and won by 6 shots.

Truly mind-boggling.

It was a shocking display of bomb-and-gouge, but when DeChambeau did miss a fairway or a green, he was still able to give himself a look at birdie or par because of his wedge game.

If you can hit an 8-iron that far out of 5-inch rough, there is nothing that golf's governing bodies can do to protect the game unless they dial back the golf ball.

In the meantime, DeChambeau will continue to get bigger and faster and tempt fate with every drive, threatening to make every course obsolete if he plays like he did at Winged Foot.

Is this a dependable strategy? It does not seem so. It has never seemed so.

But DeChambeau will say it is reliable and repeatable, and he doesn't care what anyone thinks. He has already been mocked for his innovative thinking, and much of the golf world roots against him every time he puts a peg in the ground.

What seems ridiculous works for DeChambeau, who was a physics major at SMU. Every iron and wedge in his bag cut to 37.5 inches, the lie and bounce identical, swing plane always the same with 7-iron length, and only the clubs altered by degree of loft.

He is constantly tinkering in search of more in every facet of the game and works tirelessly on the range and on the putting green.

On a Friday night at Conway Farms in 2017 as the BMW was completing the second round, I found DeChambeau on a deserted driving range. Hours after he had completed his round, the Tour rookie pounded balls alone, no caddie, swing coach or agent within miles.

No one even to fetch him a bag of balls.

"Sometimes it is (lonely)," DeChambeau told me. "I definitely have some good support systems, but at the same time you have to work on it no matter what.

"If I kind of want to be by myself, I gotta work and be by myself, to figure things out for my game. It's an individual sport and you are alone in many ways."

Now 27 years old, DeChambeau will go it alone by doing things in golf that have many shaking their heads, wondering how you can play a game of feel without any feel at all.

"It's just what I do. That's how I live my life. I like being analytical," DeChambeau said three years ago. "I try to be as precise as possible in every situation.

"Unfortunately, I get it wrong most of the time. (Thomas) Edison took more than 10,000 times to make that light bulb work."

With his first major championship, DeChambeau is now on a list with Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus as the only players to win the U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur Championship and individual NCAA Championship.

The light bulb has gone on and it is glowing.