AT&T BYRON NELSON

May 12, 2021

Bryson DeChambeau

TPC Craig Ranch

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Thanks for joining us for a few minutes. Making your third start here at the event. I know obviously this is somewhat a home game for you. If we could just pick your brain a little bit on your experience with the course. I know you have at least nine holes under your belt. Just your thoughts on the course.

BRYSON DECHAMBEAU: Yeah, with how much rain has been presented to this golf course it's held itself pretty well. The greens are in immaculate shape, so hats off to the greenskeeping crew and what they've done to keep this golf course in mint condition.

I played here in college. I love this golf course. I think it suits my game a little bit. Hopefully I can use that to my advantage this week. If I can be hitting it 190 ball speed and above I will have a tremendous advantage and give myself a good chance to win this week.

THE MODERATOR: Coming into the week in good form. Two wins this season and you worked top 10 finish last week at --

BRYSON DECHAMBEAU: Somehow.

THE MODERATOR: Yeah, I'm sure that will come up again. Thoughts on how your confidence level is with your game right now?

BRYSON DECHAMBEAU: Yeah, my confidence is very high with my putting and wedging and iron play is okay. It wasn't great last week. Driving okay, not the best. But I worked on that on Monday and feel pretty confident this week can go in and be definitely top 50 in iron play and No. 1 in strokes gained off the tee.

Definitely do that this week and hit more fairways. I feel like if I can accomplish those two things and putt the way I did last week, I'll be right up there next to the leader.

Q. Just curious as the U.S. Open defense nears, can you pinpoint the exact moment when you made that decision to undergo the transformation to hit it further and what are the influences that led to that decision?

BRYSON DECHAMBEAU: I had been influenced for a while now watching the world long drive tour. Seeing a lot of guys hit it really, really far all the way back from Jason Zuback to even Kyle Berkshire now. Seeing these guys in 2019 I watched the championships and saw Kyle do what he did. Just obliterated the field and hit it with swing speeds that I was baffled by. If I could get ten more percent, just 10% of that, extra gains, what would that mean for me in my performance on the golf course?

So I talked to my muscle specialists, Greg Roskopf in late 2019. I said, can we do this, go up in strength and size and learn how to hit it farther? Sure, why not. Let's do it. Fall of 2019 I made the decision to change my body, and that's when I talked about it the at Shriners.

I knew I was going to have a couple, months off and so i dedicated myself to working out every day and working hard and getting strong in every position and body motion. And that ultimately allowed me to swing a lot faster and I saw exponential gains quickly.

As of right now it's kind of stagnated a little bit. For me, I'm trying to figure out ways to move it faster while being easier on my body. I don't want to do this forever and do these huge speed training sessions. so being easier on my body, because I don't want to do this forever and do these huge speed training sessions and have that be the reason why I'm swinging it fast. I want to just inherently have a faster motion, so working on different ways to move it faster.

Q. And the fact that guys like Mark Brodie had quantified the advantage of hitting it farther, we always knew it was an advantage but now there are numbers behind it. How much did that influence you?

BRYSON DECHAMBEAU: It was massive. When I started looking at it and I talked to Mark a little bit and talked to Chris Como about it, every three yards farther you can hit it you can be six more yards offline or something along those lines. I was like, Whoa, that's powerful from a strokes gained potential, so let's do it.

That just made -- it solidified the decision to hit it farther.

Q. Just curious how long is your commute this week?

BRYSON DECHAMBEAU: Yeah, it's 27 minutes with no traffic on the toll roads, so not too bad.

Q. How many times have you played the course, and could you talk a little bit more about why you like it so much?

BRYSON DECHAMBEAU: Yeah, in college must have played it a dozen times I would say, and I like the golf course because the greens are in such great conditions. They're bent. I love bent greens. They rolled pure today. They rolled so good. Made a lot of putts out there in the Pro-Am.

The golf course is for the most part wide open. There are areas you got to be precise, but for the most part it's a bombers' paradise. Hopefully that plays into my hands. If I can hit it somewhat straight and have 190 ball speed, it's going to be pretty helpful on par-5s.

It was wet and rainy out here today and I had driver 7-iron and then driver 4-iron into -- on 12 and 18. So if I can just get my irons good and driver good, little bit better than last week, I feel like I can be in contention.

Q. What is your calorie intake these days?

BRYSON DECHAMBEAU: It's probably 4500 to 5000, maybe more than that, a little bit more than that. But it's nothing crazy. I'm not 240 like I was. Probably 228 to 230 and just sustaining that right now and trying to get stronger. Just want my muscles to be firing a lot faster and more stable.

Q. Just curious, a question about the PGA coming up and what is your familiarity with the Ocean Course and how you feel your game is dialed it as we get closer to that?

BRYSON DECHAMBEAU: Yeah, I feel like I'm ramping up. Every time I've had a few weeks in the row, that third or fourth week I seem to play pretty well. Hopefully this week kind of solidifies it, and maybe I play well and win this week and I am feeling really good going into next week.

But Kiawah, I've never played it. I've seen it on TV obviously watching Rory do what he did. He played really well out there, and I think his game, his length, is a tremendous advantage, as well as mine hopefully will be next week. I think it's one of the longest championships we've ever played. And I'm excited for that, because any time it's a super long golf course I think it fits into my hand quite nicely.

Q. As a follow up on Rory, you've to know him a little bit. He's a guy that is a pretty good frontrunner when he gets it rolling, which I think you are to a degree as well. Having done what he just did at Quail, what is your feeling about where he is going into this major, particularly because he's the last guy that won there as well?

BRYSON DECHAMBEAU: Yeah, he's obviously got great chances. We all knew he was going to go back and win at some point. He was struggling, but his resolve is incredible and his ability to play the game of golf is undeniably unbelievable. I would say Hall of Fame worthy as time goes on.

I would say that there is numerous facets about his game that if he continues to improve he is going to a force to be reckoned with for a long time, and will continue to do so probably for the rest of his life. That's exciting. I like playing against people that are continuing to dedicate themselves ti playing the best golf they can possibly play, and I want to play with the best players in the world and continue to challenge myself as well.

That's why I play out here, that's why I play against the best, that's why I love it when I see Rory up there at the top of the leaderboard or anybody else that's a force to be reckoned with. It's something I thrive off of.

Q. Next week obviously they're going to allow range finders at PGA. Curious, two things from your perspective. One, do you see that speeding up play at all? And secondly, how will you and Tim go about using one next week and so forth?

BRYSON DECHAMBEAU: Yeah, I mean, I think it's going to help me for when I hit it offline. We're not going to have to go to a sprinkler head and walk 40, 50 yards away from a place to find a number. So there will be certain times it will help. I think it may slow play down in certain scenarios where if you're trying to double check that may not be great, but again, you have to play under a certain time period, so for the most part, if players use it in a way that allows them to speed up play that's great. If they're always double checking, I think that's a place where it could slow play down a little bit, which I am not a fan of at all.

I think this certain scenarios, like for instance, if I hit it offline there may be a potential for me to utilize that to my advantage to speed up play a little bit.

Q. Your guys obviously pretty thorough in your sizing of up of a shot. If it's not offline do you see it as something you see yourself using to double check things frequently?

BRYSON DECHAMBEAU: No. No. I don't think we will. We're so good with the numbers that we've relied on my entire professional career, we'll keep continuing to trust those numbers.

Q. You were talking about going back to when you first made the decision to transform. I just want to know, and you may have spoken to this -- was there a time or point where you worried that it wasn't going to work or wasn't working how you thought it might.

BRYSON DECHAMBEAU: Yeah, even right now I'm still wondering how to get faster. It did work for a little bit. I got faster pretty quick, but then there were times I would hit it wild off the tee and I was like, Whoa, this isn't good. How did I rein this in. So it's a constant battle between power and accuracy. How did you become more accurate with more speed. And vice versa, then how did you get power and rein it back in.

So I question it every day, to be honest with you. That's something I wake up ever morning, okay, how do I feel? Is my body feeling good compared to the training that I did yesterday? How is it going to affect my golf game?

I'm continuing to evaluate. Yes, there has been numerous times I feel like this may not be that great, and the next day I'm come and, Whoa, this is working. What the heck. So it's a continual I guess evolution, adaptation, of trying to make sure it's the right thing for me.

Q. I guess I'm wondering if playing BCDF or whatever it might have been, was every one of them reverting completely back?

BRYSON DECHAMBEAU: Oh, yeah, 100%. There was a point in time when I started this early on and I tried to get to 190 ball speed, I remember, and there was times where I swinging literally out of my butt, and I was like, Man, this is not good for my bed. I can't do this. I remember waking up of the next day, I'm like, Dude, my hands, everything hurt. What am I doing?

Then it healed and I got back out there the next time and I was already faster. I was like, Whoa, okay, maybe this is good. I don't know. So it's a continual valuation of the body and accuracy and how far I'm hitting it.

There were numerous times I felt like I had to backtrack for a bit.

THE MODERATOR: I've just got one last question. Just want to get your thoughts on how excited you were for Austin winning on the Korn Ferry Tour? How cool is what?

BRYSON DECHAMBEAU: Oh, man, he's such a grinder, such a hard worker. He's a really good friend of mine and we were unbelievably close in college. He has worked so hard to get to this position. I think as Harry, I saw Harry talked to Austin after he won as well. I think he listed it so great that he is so deserving of this victory. He worked his entire life to be able to be a professional golfer.

I knew him from junior golf. We grew up together and he beat me in the California State Junior one year, and I was so mad. I'm like, How does this little scrawny kid beat me, and gave him so much crap. I think that the most important thing that I was able to do for him was hopefully inspire him, because I played pretty well in college, hopefully inspire him to keep going and work hard and keep his focus on the game of golf.

And then Jesse is his rock, and I think their relationship together has helped spur him on to be the best golfer he can be. For me, too, I think it's going to be cool if we have another pony out here. It's going to be special. You've got Kelly, Harry, Austin, and I. That'll be pretty special to have numerous amount of ponies out here.