Becoming Bryson-fly

(WARNING: LONG AND RAMBLING)

In the arthouse drama Tropic Thunder, Kirk Lazaraus (Robert Downey Jr.) lectured Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller) about the perils of going “full reblard” (latter word changed out of respect to the TTAF readership).  There is analogous wisdom for operating on a golf course, where one should always be mindful not to mimic our tour hero’s appearance and gear too closely.  Offenders, as you may be aware, are typically referred to as “tools,” “knobs”, “total dooshes” and in extreme cases “real shitheels.”

Of all the players one could borrow from and find themselves with the “real shitheel” designation, Bryson DeChambeau is by far the most dangerous.  This isn’t to say you can’t be inspired by the Chamboner, you just have to do it modestly!  Like you could wear the dumb Ben Hogan hat but maybe not the one with a Puma logo or matching Puma shirt, belt and pants.  One could also keep some of their dignity playing single length Cobra clubs so long as they opt to get them without the JumboMax grips.  And folks should feel free to use that arm lock putter, but prepare to be nut punched if they opt for the $800 Sik Pro-C Series with the upgraded LA Golf Zylon shaft. 

I say all this to make clear I understand the thin ice I’m treading on.  For very slowly I have been morphing into Bryson James Aldrich DeChambeau III and it can no longer be stopped.  Yes, we are still distinguishable (I’m older, fatter and worse at golf) but the lines are starting to blur.  It’s like I’m in that movie The Fly, but instead of Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) getting into a teleporter with an insect maybe in my case Bryson and I were hanging out in his golf studio using some futuristic VR Trackman simulator and our biomechanics and parasympathetic states somehow got blended. Yes, it’s unlikely this happened but most doctors would say, at the very least, we have become psychically linked. It’s coming on fast and furious now and my mind is becoming just like Bryson; filled with thoughts of single length irons, moments of inertia, wind vectors, air density, coefficients of restitution, vector putting, and stippling.  This will most likely be the last time I can write as the BobbyCuts you are familiar with so I will use the opportunity to document my descent into madness.

It began on a hot Sunday afternoon in 2015 whilst watching Bryson win the US Amateur with that weird looking putter from Edel called “the brick”.  I combed the message boards to find what it was all about and was struck by the claims of “incredible stability” via “Torque Balanced technology”. You see, with its optimally weighted design, The Brick is less susceptible to the forces of torque during the putting stroke!! As a God awful putter (35-36 ppr) with a weak spot for snobby/smart-sounding fixes I found it intoxicating (arousing even?).  The Brick wasn’t available in the Syracuse area and being a semi-broke gentleman I refused to buy it sight unseen, so I did the only fiscally responsible thing and drove 4 hours to Paramus NJ on two different occasions to test it out. 

Had Bryson not switched to side saddle I might have actually bought that thing!  But it’s not like I didn’t end up buying other garbage putters. Like a dog to a shnausage I went fully down the side saddle rabbit hole, learning all about the successes of amateur Randy Haag, who had won countless bigtime events using a bullshit STX putter. I then stalked those bullshit STX putters over the course of 3-4 months, and ended up buying 2 of them.  I even traded messages with Randy, who seems to be a generous and terrific guy.  However, for as easy as it was supposed to be, I sucked at side-saddle and was embarrassed to bring it to the course. Most importantly I just couldn’t see the target line right and I couldn’t pull the putter back straight.

Bryson of course abandoned the side saddling quickly after a handful of brushes with the PGA police and moved on to something else. I knew I too needed to do the same but was deeply ashamed, having dumped money into something that was obviously never going to work. But then Bryson started winning with some mysterious new wand that looked fused to his left arm. Part man, part machine?? If he could do it, by our sweet Lord and Savior I could too!! This began the quest to get the putter responsible for all that winning.

That wand, as many of you know, is the aforementioned $800 Sik Pro-C Series with the upgraded LA Golf Zylon shaft.  Sik wasn’t too hard to locate and they did a good job communicating up front.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to be able to use the same discipline I used on the Edel, as the only way I could test one out was to fly down to their studio in Orlando (I wanted and still want to do this very badly).  I decided to say what the hell and pull the trigger because WHAT OTHER GODDAMN PUTTER HAS PATENTED DESCENDING LOFT TECHNOLOGY???  The answer is no other putter.  And no one else had any idea what specs Bryson was using, not with absolute certainty.  So I sold my entire putter collection aside from a 35” Scotty Cameron Newport slant neck and a 27” Taylormade Spider Monza Corza I had built (nicknamed “the Garrigus”).  Believe it or not the proceeds brought me over $600; enough to get a Sik with a standard steel shaft (I still regret not getting the Zylon). 

It took over 4 months to get the damn thing; it was like they knew this would make me a scratch golfer and they resented selling it to me at any price.  But with just the right amount of pestering, I finally got it. Overnight I went from averaging the 35-36 ppr, to slightly better than 35 ppr!!  More importantly, in the entire season I used it no one made fun of me and no one called me a “real shitheel.”  Perhaps I was only a tool or total doosh?  I could accept that for sure.

The newfound self confidence led me to study Bryson more closely, and further curiosity about the rest of his bag, especially his grips.  Bryson has average sized hands but uses super jumbo sized grips?  Wouldn’t that lead to problems getting the clubface square at impact?  Not so says Bryson!  Consider that in every other major sport they use a larger sized grip, so why wouldn’t a golf club be the same??  It’s a good question, and all I needed to get myself into some Golf Price CP2 Jumbos!  And has anyone at the golf dome made fun of me this winter???  NO SIREE BOB.  In fact a number of the geezer yahoos I hit with have wanted to bond over them.  With no one shaming me it’s like the metamorphosis only gets stronger, and what it wants now are the Cobra King Forged MB One Lengths with One Length Utilities in the 4/5. 

Feel free to start a GoFundMe on my behalf – you won’t regret it.  Please know that after I have my new clubs the transformation will be nearly complete!  I’ll just need to slow my rounds down to the 6 hour mark and get a Physics Masters certificate from Phoenix University. No one knows how this will end, but hopefully it won’t be like The Fly where Geena Davis dropped Brundlefly with a shotgun blast to the face. That would be unfair.

____________________

Seth Brundle : The disease has just revealed its purpose. We don’t have to worry about contagion anymore… I know what the disease wants.

Ronnie : What does the disease want?

Seth Brundle : It wants to… turn me into something else. That’s not too terrible is it? Most people would give anything to be turned into something else.

Ronnie : Turned into what?

Seth Brundle : Whaddaya think? A fly. Am I becoming a hundred-and-eighty-five-pound fly? No, I’m becoming something that never existed before. I’m becoming… Brundlefly.