What if Bryson DeChambeau shows up at Augusta National one month from now carrying more than 245 beefy pounds and a new driver the length of a shovel?
What if DeChambeau shows up in a hoodie?
Golf as we know it might end right there, its last rites pronounced amid the late autumn splendor of a mis-timed Masters, the game as we’ve known it lying in pieces like Humpty Dumpty.
As if the consternation generated by DeChambeau’s brash plan to club the game into submission when he’s not wolfing down another plate of bacon and eggs hasn’t caused enough emotional indigestion among traditionalists, Tyrrell Hatton had the temerity to win the European Tour’s BMW PGA Championship on Sunday while playing in a hoodie.
The question isn’t whether hoodies belong on the golf course. The question is whether a player can make a swing without the hood getting in the way at some point.
To some, who probably still don’t know that wearing plus-fours makes you look like a clown, seeing a hoodie on a tournament golfer is akin to wearing cargo shorts and flip flops. The fact that Hatton pushed the fashion envelope while winning the biggest European event outside the Open Championship heightened the unnecessary attention on his attire.
What’s the game coming to?
Considering how grateful everyone should be that golf is being played on both the professional and the personal level, it does feel as if there is an abundance of angst about what is happening to the game.
If people are a little edgy let’s blame at least part of it on the election, which can’t get here quick enough so we can be done with the endless commercials, yard signs and the social media videos that fill up timelines that would otherwise be cluttered with take-offs on the skateboarder drinking cranberry juice while cooling out to Dreams. (Harry Higgs, who could definitely rock a hoodie in competition, has done the best version of the TikTok so far).
Let’s deal with the easy one first:
Hatton’s hoodie was cool.
Given what we’ve seen Ian Poulter and Rickie Fowler wear through the years – and I applaud their willingness to push the fashion boundaries – Hatton wearing a hooded sweatshirt was a logical next step for golfers.
The question isn’t whether hoodies belong on the golf course. The question is whether a player can make a swing without the hood getting in the way at some point.
Evidently Hatton had no problem with it. Hopefully, he will have a hoodie or two at the Masters, where the temperatures are likely to be on the chilly side. It would be doubly cool if Hatton played at least one round at the Masters wearing the red cardigan he won at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March, the last event completed before the great shutdown of 2020.
When Hatton offered online to give away 10 hoodies last week, he got more than 9,500 responses overnight, so he and adidas must be onto something.
“I think it’s a cool thing that people are talking about it,” Hatton said. “It’s comfortable when you play golf in it and it looks good, then I don’t see an issue,” Hatton said.
Before Hatton’s clothing became a subject of discussion at Wentworth, Matthew Fitzpatrick became the latest to question what DeChambeau is doing to himself and, by extension, the game. Fitzpatrick suggested DeChambeau is making a mockery of the game with the distances he hits the ball.
“It’s not a skill to hit the ball a long way in my opinion,” Fitzpatrick said, suggesting he could see a biochemist and bulk up like DeChambeau has chosen to do.
“The skill in my opinion is to hit the ball straight.”
He’s not entirely wrong, but DeChambeau is demonstrating that he can do both, maybe not as accurately as Fred Funk is off the tee, but good enough to win the U.S. Open by six strokes. Unless something changes – like the R&A announcing that the Old Course will no longer host the Open Championship because it can’t stand up to the modern game – the distance race will only continue.
DeChambeau fueled the fire Sunday by detailing his plan between now and the Masters. It begins with eating and gym time then progresses to fine-tuning new equipment, most likely a 48-inch driver. The same guy who barks at photographers too often loves to talk about what he’s doing.
It’s nails on a chalkboard to some, but it’s working for him. DeChambeau is planning a pre-tournament visit to Augusta National where he can re-program his target lines off the tee because flying it 340 yards changes things. DeChambeau said he will hit between one and two thousand drivers before the Masters to get his equipment just right.
What’s that old line, it’s not bragging if you can do it?
Asked how many tee shots will be different for him this year, DeChambeau said, “Well, No. 1 may be different, I don’t know, just depends on the wind conditions, obviously, I would say No. 2 is different, 3 is different, 5’s different, 7 will be different, 8 will be different, 9 will be different. 11 will be different, 13 will be different, 14 will be different, 15 will be different, 17 will be different, 18 will definitely be different.”
Every hole but No. 10 and the par-3s.
Now if he can just get a hoodie in an XXL …