I watched every day of the match play of the US Amateur. It was good to see some good people and friends of the blog get some recognition, Edel Golf and Scott Fawcett. This was due to Mr. DeChambeau winning the tournament. But, you have to give credit to people like David Edel and Scott Fawcett for being innovative, asking 'what if?' and not being afraid to put their ass on the line and do the best they can to create something great.
I'm sure most know about DeChambeau and his equipment which is mostly Edel Golf equipment (irons, wedges and putter). But, I'll give a rundown anyway.
DeChambeau's irons are all the same length (roughly 37.5" long) which is about the length of a 6-iron.
He uses the same lie angle on all of his clubs (GolfWRX has it reported at 69*, other places have it at 72*).
In order to do that, his head weights have to be either the same or close to it. I was reading one article that indicated the head weights were *not* the same, but more close to it and indicated that he may be using different shafts in his irons. So, instead of having head weights range from say 240 to 300 grams from the 3-iron to P-Wedge, he may have them at 255-275 grams and may have some heavier shafts in the long irons and lighter shafts in the short irons. Or he may just have each iron head at the same weight like 265 grams.
His putter is a Torque Balance putter from Edel.
Where most putters have toe hang or they are 'face balanced', the torque balanced putter has no toe hang, it has heel hang. The idea is that you really can't leave the blade open with this putter as it will always release the clubface. I've contemplated getting one, but for now I'll continue to work on my stroke and if some residual issues are still left over, then I will consider it.
According to DeChambeau, he has 2 different driver swings, 1 that goes about 112 mph for his 'control swing' and another he claims can go to 127 mph. I have a hard time believing that as it is so much of a jump in speed, but he was hitting a lot of drives far past his competitors. I like a lot of elements to his swing. Personally, I thought his driving was a bit weak, but it is hard to tell when you're playing a US Open style course like Olympia Fields. I thought his largest strengths were his putting and iron play. In fact, for all of the worries about his distance control with his single length irons, I thought that his distance control was impeccable. And he was incredible from out of the rough. He takes forever on the putting greens, but he putted great.
As far as his swing goes, it reminds me a bit of Stricker except he has even less wrist cock. I thought he was using a drive-hold release, just not doing it thru the standard means of pelvic rotation and right shoulder external rotation which is incredibly difficult to do without those mechanical movements.
There was a scene where Sean Crocker was immediately going to the next tee while his opponent still had to putt. This caused some controversy as poor etiquette (which it was). Crocker did an interview and explained himself. He claimed that is what the college coaches teach him as well as the marshals out on the course in college events and that he can't stand to watch an opponent make a put to win a hole or to halve the hole and didn't think it was a big deal. He did say he can see where it would be considered poor etiquette, but he never really owned up to it.
Having played college golf I never had college coaches teach me or anybody else I knew that had a college coach teach them that. I know times have changed and college golf has a massive issue with slow play (you can be at the course for 6-8 hours easily at a college event). I'm certain the NCAA has taken measures to speed up play and I'm sure that there are certain circumstances where they will tell a player to go to the next tee box before a player finishes out the hole because the play may be so slow (a player may hit into trouble, there's a drop, he takes a quad and slows the group up and slows up the entire course). I just didn't buy into that excuse.
And neither did Greg Norman who did a really fantastic job of expressing his thoughts on the subject. I wish it was on YouTube because he did a far better job than I can trying to recount what he said. He stated that while he says that college coaches may tell you that, the fact is that in this situation you are wrong for doing that. And that as a player in a golf event you not only have a responsibility and accountability for yourself, you also have a responsibility and accountability for your opponent. Players are always going to make putts against you and the etiquette of the game is there for many reasons, in particular helping you grow as a player and as a person. And essentially (without saying it) that people telling you differently are wrong and they are only telling you that to kiss your ass because you were in the semifinals of the US Amateur.
I should emphasize that the Shark said it in a way that wasn't outright bashing Crocker and he was taking into consideration that Crocker is still a young kid. But more or less he was telling him he was wrong, regardless of what the people that are telling you what you to hear say about the situation and he was telling him why he was wrong, why it was detrimental to Crocker in the long run and giving him advice for the future.
Just extremely impressive from the Shark.
Anyway, it was a great event to watch and I enjoyed it thoroughly. The best player won and FOX's coverage improved by leaps and bounds from the US Open coverage which was a disaster.
3JACK