Bryson DeChambeau makes hasty exit, expensive U-turn

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Bryson DeChambeau shot 68 in the third round of the Wells Fargo Championship on Saturday morning, briefly getting to within three of the lead. Not 24 hours earlier he was on a plane to Dallas, headed home after missing the cut. (Not!) What happened in between those two events was a madcap misadventure that left him short of sleep. When it was over and DeChambeau had made a double bogey on 18 and shot 68 that got him to 1 under total, it was left to a caddie to perfectly sum up what had happened. “You got your calculations wrong,” the caddie said as DeChambeau, the Mad Scientist, strode past him on the way to the stately, white clubhouse to sign his card. DeChambeau could only smile. He certainly had. “I learned my lesson for sure,” he said. The chaos began Friday, when DeChambeau triple-bogeyed the par-5 seventh hole, his third-to-last hole of the day. He birdied the eighth but thought he needed to birdie the ninth, as well, and left the property dejected after failing to do so and signing for a 3-over 74, 2 over par total. At the time it looked iffy whether those at 1 over would make it to the weekend, so DeChambeau figured he had zero shot at making the cut. He gathered his things, boarded a private plane back home to Dallas, and settled in for the roughly three-hour flight with headwinds. He got quite a surprise in the middle of it. His agent texted his manager, Connor Olson, to say that with wind buffeting the course, Bryson had moved up to 68th place and had qualified for the weekend rounds, after all. DeChambeau couldn’t believe it. “Sure enough, conditions kept getting worse,” he said, “and by the time I landed I was in 64th or 63rd or whatever. I looked at Connor: ‘Well, whoops, that was a mistake.’” Team DeChambeau quickly ran through their options. The flight crew had worked too many hours, and to get a new one would require a minimum six-hour advance notice. So a hasty U-turn was out. They decided to spend the night in Dallas and leave early in the morning. Very early. DeChambeau went home and got a workout in before going to bed at around 8 p.m. He logged about five hours before waking up for his 2:45 a.m. flight. He slept for some of that, and he and the team landed in Charlotte at 5:45, drove to Quail Hollow, about a half an hour away, and arrived at 6:20 a.m. He threw on his clothes in the locker room, then went out to the range. “Very tired, yeah,” he said after the round, which he played with Shane Lowry (75). “This morning was not easy. But, you know, for whatever reason I just feel like the more weird things happen to me, the greater my resolve sometimes can be and today was a case of that.” He admitted he thought about not coming back, but not for long. And the solid round made it easier to laugh off the chaos and expense of flying halfway across the country, twice. “It’s very (costly),” he said. “Way too expensive. But the thing is, I have a chance to go make a good check this week and I think that would offset it. So, if I was to not come back and withdraw, lose world ranking points and all that – I had to incur the cost. It’s my fault.”

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