Bryson DeChambeau won the 120th U.S. Open and secured his first ever major championship on Sunday, Sept. 20 at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, NY. DeChambeau secured his seventh victory on the PGA Tour and $2,250,000 in prize money after a six-under par finish over the weekend.
“It sounds amazing, but surreal,” DeChambeau said. “It’s been a lot of hard work and I [have to] say thanks to my whole team and all my sponsors as well.”
DeChambeau was excellent in all facets of his game during the weekend. He was third in strokes gained off the tee with 5.38, third in strokes gained on approach shots with 6.98 and second in strokes gained around the green with 5.42.
“I beat the golf course,” he said. “I dominated it.”
While DeChambeau struggled hitting fairways, hitting successfully on only 23 of 56 drives, he had the seventh longest driving distance on the weekend with an average distance of 325.6 yards.
Prior to this year, no U.S. Open champion had hit fewer than 27 fairways. However, DeChambeau’s average driving distance was the longest of any U.S. Open champion.
Golf legends Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson failed to make the cut. Woods shot 10-over par and Mickelson shot 13-over par. Jordan Spieth, the 2015 U.S. Open champion, also failed to make the cut after shooting 14-over par. Another surprising cut was 2020 PGA Championship winner Collin Morikawa, who shot 7-over par.
Headed into Saturday, Patrick Reed led the field at four-under par. Reed’s lead disappeared Saturday with a tough back nine. Reed shot eight-over par on his third round back nine with six bogeys and one double bogey. Reed finished four-over par and tied for 13th place.
Matthew Wolff, the 21-year old Oklahoma State product, shot five-under par on Saturday to capture the 54-hole lead. Wolff hit just 2-of-14 fairways but was excellent scrambling and had six birdies with just one bogey in his third round.
“My putting is probably the best it has felt in two or three months,” Wolff said.
He needed only ten puts on the front nine holes on Saturday.
DeChambeau’s degree in physics and body transformation has been a revelation to the golf landscape this season and was a storyline in Mamaroneck.
“So many times, I relied on science and it worked every single time,” DeChambeau said.
He is planning on possibly gaining an additional ten pounds by the time the 2020 Masters rolls around in two months.
The PGA Tour returns next week when the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship takes place Sept. 24-27.
Photo courtesy of Gregory Shamus
