DeChambeau's new putting technique

NAPLES, Fla. -- As if Bryson DeChambeau, he of the 37-inch-long set of irons, wasn't an equipment trendsetter already, he intends to shake up the conventional thinking of putting, too. As he approached the first green at Tiburon Golf Club for his Tuesday pro-am round at the Franklin Templeton Shootout, he warned playing partner Bret Baier, the Fox News anchor, "This is going to look a little funky. Don't be shocked." DeChambeau addressed his 15-foot birdie putt facing the target, the ball positioned parallel to his right foot, his right foot slightly ahead of his left, his left hand locked just below his right elbow. "I can hear them mumbling in the background, 'What is he doing?'  Then, I hit the putt, right on line, boom, back of the cup, and they exploded in cheers," DeChambeau recalled. "That was a great introduction to my first time in a public atmosphere."

DeChambeau has been toying with the unconventional putting technique -- don't call it side-saddle, he says -- for more than three years. "It's going to freak people out," he said with a wide smile. DeChambeau admits he's never been a very good putter, and his limited Strokes Gained: Putting stats on the PGA TOUR seem to back that up. (He ranks No. 166 in seven recorded rounds in 2016-2017.)

"I'm the greatest two-putter in the world," DeChambeau said, "but I've never been good inside 12 feet."Sidesaddle putting is nothing new. Sam Snead is its most famous devotee, turning to the technique in 1968, after the USGA banned the croquet-style technique he used to great effect. Modern-day proponents have popularized the term Face-on putting. More recently, K.J. Choi gave that technique a whirl at the 2011 John Deere Classic and The Open Championship. "I don't like the name Face-On, either," DeChambeau said. He tried a variation of Face-on putting once before with mixed results. He shared the 36-hole lead at the 2014 Jones Cup, an acclaimed amateur event, but soared to a 79 on the final day, and used it during his next two college events before abandoning it."I always believed he could putt better this way," said Mike Schy, DeChambeau's longtime swing coach. "My thing was to get him as many putters as possible to try."

A year and a half ago, they decided to make their own. The concept for the putter is a story of its own. Schy says he took a Styrofoam cup, cut it in half and stuck a shaft in the middle."Bryson looks at it and says, 'That's it.' He starts hitting putts with it on the practice putting green. Only Bryson would do that," Schy said. The homemade prototype putter he is using this week is 37 1/2-inches long, the same length as all of his irons, center-shafted (with a 7-iron shaft) and weighs 525 grams. DeChambeau even drew the aim-point with a Sharpie. 

DeChambeau practiced with it for at least 7 hours a day for the past two weeks. When he describes the benefits of looking at the hole with both eyes and swinging his right arm in a pendulum motion, he makes it sound simple."It's more bio-mechanically efficient," he said. "I take it back with a certain amount of energy with a certain acceleration profile that lets it go a certain distance."Still, as recently as Saturday, he had second thoughts whether to put the stroke on public display. Ultimately, DeChambeau decided the Shootout's low-key affair was the perfect place to experiment before he commits to using it at the Sony Open in Hawaii. What will it mean to the way golfer's attempt to knock a little white ball into a hole if DeChambeau proves successful with his new-fangled technique?

"I've thought a lot about what is this going to do to people's perception of me on TOUR," he said. "I don't want to be thought of as this guy trying to change the game, right. I'm just trying to do it for myself personally, but secondly I want it to be easier for everyone out there so we can get more people playing and they can have a great time playing."And what if it really takes off?" "Then we'll have to come up with a name for it," he said.