If you listened to all the talk, Bryson deChambeau – perhaps the world's most discussed golfer – was going to change the entire game of golf when he rocked up at the 13th hole at the Masters.
It's a par five but, even at 510 yards, its downhill layoutwas considered to be easy meat for de Chambeau – the pumped-up, huge-driving, muscleman of golf. He regularly pounds his drives 350 yards and occasionally over 400, a man who has threatened to bomb golf into submission.
The 13th was said to be one huge cannon blast for him, then a gentle wedge to the green and an eagle – two-under par. If deChambeau could ruffle the petticoats of one of the grand old ladies of golf, then surely the sport would have to change by bringing in new laws to protect the virtue of golf courses laid bare by deChambeau's length.
Or so the theory went. It's just that golf got in the way. What happened at the 13th in the first round was also good for the soul of weekend golfers who often find themselves in situations like this at courses much less arduous than Augusta.
DeChambeau blasted his tee shot right, the ball settling under Augusta's pines, on the pine straw. He couldn't see the green. Whoops. The thing to do in this circumstance is to lay up. He didn't. He went for the green with a Hallelujah shot. The ball shot into thick bushes, well left of the green.
Humble time. That ball could be lost. So deChambeau hit a provisional ball. That one went in the water at Rae's Creek. Whoops. At this stage, the caddy must have been wondering if he'd packed an abacus in de Chambeau's bag. His golfer was potentially facing an eight- or even a nine-shot hole if he didn't find the first ball.
They say you can't win the Masters in the first round – but you can sure as hell lose it. DeChambeau found his ball (or, rather, his caddy did) and he got away with a double-bogey seven and two-under for the round.
Bryson DeChambeau plays his shot from the fourth tee during the second round of the Masters. Photo / Getty
The moral of the story is that golf is not dead yet. Subtlety, good decision-making and clever shot-shaping will never go out of fashion. The sport still has plenty of teeth to defend itself against the bombers.
Earlier, Masters watchers saw a golfer – another much-discussed player – who also once provoked the golfing world to believe that the laws would have to be changed to combat his length and his all-round skill: Tiger Woods.
Yes, he's the defending champion after that rambunctious, boiling, win last year with a huge sea of fans following him like he was the Messiah. Yes, he needs three more majors to equal Jack Nicklaus' world record but his form has been patchy lately; few gave him much of a chance this year.
But there he was, now the elder statesman (at 44) and – in perfect contrast to deChambeau – not trying to do too much of anything but doing everything right in the first round. He ended up tied for fourth in round one, but had a quiet 10 holes in the darkness-interrupted second round.
Woods drove it straight, laid up when he had to, played within himself and used the course management gained from five Masters victories. DeChambeau sought to overpower Augusta by brute force; Woods used stealth and diplomacy.
DeChambeau's second round brought more misfortune, only earlier. At the third, a driveable 350 yards par four, he wellied another enormous drive and, battling the same hook that had disfigured his driving the previous day, lost the ball in patchy ground about 30m from the green.
It was a weird sequence and really bad luck – the sort of bad luck you can get when you risk accuracy for raw power. His ball was hiding in plain sight, probably plugged in a second cut of rough – but a whole posse of searchers couldn't find it in the three minutes the rules allow.
A dispirited de Chambeau went back to the tee, hit another ball, hooked again – and came away with an unnerving triple bogey seven. Three more bogeys in the next four holes and a missed eagle at the eighth meant his Masters challenge was as lost as his ball.
In the war that could be said to be deChambeau vs golf courses, the scoreboard reads 1-1 – with his crushing victory at Winged Foot in the US Open and a just-as-crushing defeat to Augusta.
His style is perhaps more suited to a course like Winged Foot – where he could bomb his drives and play out of the rough, which he was rather good at. Augusta's trees (as happened at the 13th) are maybe a more effective defence.
He will clearly not win the Masters. Whether that will deter him in his quest to overpower the world's best courses with his bomb-and-gouge strategy remains to be seen.
