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It’s been a lengthy build up, including a yearlong postponement and four days of practice at Whistling Straits, but this year’s edition of the Ryder Cup is almost here. Before play begins, I’ve tried to answer some of the burning questions you may have about this intercontinental competition between the United States and Europe. Are Brooks and Bryson sharing dessert at the team dinners? Has Tommy Fleetwood got a new partner found a new partner he can love as much as Francesco? Will Wisconsin fans eat the state’s weight in cheese curds and brats? What songs will be sung on the first tee? And who, really, is the favorite on an American-style links that may see some European weather this week? These are all important questions. But there’s only one that matters: Who will win? Let’s dive in. 1. What is the health status of the game’s biggest stars who came in under a cloud? When every point is vital, every player must be at his best. But after a Super Season chock full of big events, some of the biggest names on each team arrive with some question marks about their status. U.S. team members Brooks Koepka and Collin Morikawa both had recent injury concerns, while World No .1 Jon Rahm arrives after a rare missed cut that followed a stomach ailment. Koepka, who has battled ongoing knee complaints and withdrew from the TOUR Championship with a wrist injury, didn’t exactly inspire confidence in his pre-tournament press conference. But remember, he also plays his best when he feels aggrieved. Having something to prove brings out the best in Brooks. “I’m like glass, so I wouldn’t say I am 100%. Left knee, right knee, I’m broken, man,” Koepka said before turning the narrative into his ability to tough it out. “I feel fine. I feel as good as I’ve felt in a long time. Over the past week and a half, I did a lot of work on it with Derek Samuel, my trainer. He was down with me for about eight days, so able to kind of work everything out and make sure it’s fine but I feel good and I’m ready to go as much or as little as they want.” Koepka said he’s willing to go 36 holes a day but word on the street is he won’t be doing so. As for Morikawa, the two-time major winner said the back injury he suffered at the Olympics is no longer a concern. “I’m 100% healthy. Knock on wood right now, but I’m feeling great,” he said. Last week, Rahm withdrew from the pro-am of the season-opening Fortinet Championship with a stomach ailment and promptly went on to miss the cut. As the shortest pre-tournament favorite on TOUR since Tiger Woods in 2013, it was a shocking result. Are there any lingering effects from that week? “I’m physically ready for it,” he said Thursday. “I know I don’t look like it but I train every day when I’m at home, believe it or not. I’m in really good shape. I have no problem walking 36. I feel like the biggest challenge in an event like this is possibly five rounds of the mental aspect of it, and that’s where I think you need to learn to really unwind quickly and get ready when you need to. “In my case, the most important things outside of all that would be hydrating properly and getting enough sleep. Those two things are going to be the keys this week.” 2. Does Whistling Straits give the U.S. a true home-course advantage? The short answer is yes. The U.S. side is stacked with bombers, and conditions at the lakeside Pete Dye course have been tailored to their styles. While to the eye it may appear like something found in Europe, it is far from it. “It looks like a links course but it’s not playing that way. The greens are soft, decently soft. You can’t really run stuff around the green,” rookie Harris English said. The rough has been hacked down to very manageable lengths – giving the United States’ long hitters a little more leeway off the tee — and while Dye installed more than 1,000 bunkers, soft fairways and greens give a distinct advantage to those who carry the ball a long way in the air. It’s a setup that plays to the Americans’ advantage. “The golf course, it won’t be as firm or as fast as maybe it would be in a major championship because you’re not trying to test the golfers as much and as thoroughly as they can. The Ryder Cup is match play. It’s a different animal,” former Cup hero Justin Leonard said. Leonard, who was not a long hitter, lost the 2004 PGA Championship in a playoff to Vijay Singh at Whistling Straits, but the course was playing much firmer that week. “A lot of that does come down to Steve Stricker, and if he feels like his team has an advantage in length, maybe it’s better to have the golf course playing a little bit slower so that his players will be coming into the green with a little less club… a softer golf course I feel like length is a bigger advantage.” The other obvious factor is the crowd. With travel restrictions coming from Europe in place and the pandemic still affecting the appetite for travel in general the home crowd advantage is magnified even more. Europe tried Wednesday to garner favor amongst the locals by wearing Cheese Heads and the green and gold of Wisconsin’s beloved Green Bay Packers. It was a clever move from Captain Padraig Harrington but it won’t be enough when the matches get underway. The distinctive European fans aren’t around to help lift his troops. 3. What – at a higher level – is at stake here? There is more than just the Ryder Cup at stake This U.S. side represents a changing of the guard. It’s the first time since 1993 that neither Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson is on the team. This roster, which includes six rookies, is the youngest in U.S. history with an average age under 30. Dustin Johnson is the elder statesman at 37, and the majority of the team has yet to reach its 30th birthday. The side is ridiculously stacked on paper. It has eight of the top 10 players in the world. Ten of the U.S. players are ranked ahead of Europe’s second-highest-ranked player (No. 14 Viktor Hovland). So, if ever the U.S. is to arrest a slide that has seen Europe win four of the last five, seven of the last nine and 12 of the last 17 Cups, it must begin now. This team has a nucleus that could turn the tables with a decade or more of dominance. But can they actually make it happen? And what happens if they don’t? Another Task Force? “It’s a big one for our team,” said Tony Finau, who was a member of the U.S. Team that lost in Paris three years ago. “We have a chance to do something really special for our team, our country and especially for Stricks. … Our goal is not only to change the mold this year, but the history of the Ryder Cup for us. It means a lot to us young guys, and hopefully we change the mold not just this Ryder Cup but many Ryder Cups to come.” For Europe, this could possibly be the last stand for a veteran core that includes Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Sergio Garcia. This may be the last Cup for multiple members of this great triumvirate of European Ryder Cup stars and they’d surely like to go out on a winning note. 4. What’s the status of the Brooks-Bryson situation? Don’t expect Koepka and DeChambeau to form a big-bashing pair this week but at least it appears they are on the same page as they both don the red, white and blue. “A lot of this social media stuff has definitely been driven by a lot of external factors, not necessarily us two. We had some great conversations in TOUR Championship week when we had dinner, and then this week, as well,” DeChambeau said this week. “I sat down and had dinner with him last night, and it was fine. I think there may be something fun coming up here moving forward but won’t speak too much more on that.” Stricker called their relationship “a non-issue.” They’re part of a tight-knit team, many of whom have known each other since junior golf. The strength of his team’s bond has even surprised Stricker, who also captained the U.S. side in the Presidents Cup four years ago. “I knew they were close, but they’re really close,” Stricker said of his squad. “I think they’ve played so much golf together growing up, on the same college teams together, they play a lot of social golf together, … the level of how close has surprised me. That’s a good thing. That’s what I wanted from day one is a family-type atmosphere.” 5. What’s the forecast and who does that favor? Wind and rain can always be a factor when you’re playing golf on the shores of a large body of water. Whistling Straits, built on the shores of Lake Michigan, is no exception. Adding a wrinkle to Friday’s opening sessions is the fact that the winds will switch and start coming out of the west and south-west. Throughout the practice days, the wind has blown from the north and north-west. Saturday’s forecast includes gusts up to 25mph, so it could certainly get wild out there, although a decent chance of late rain Friday night will also continue to soften up the course and give the bombers on the U.S. team some extra advantage. “It would be a beach day at home,” European Captain Padraig Harrington smiles before getting down to brass tacks. “My players don’t need that. They’re good enough. They’re great ball-strikers. We’re not looking for extreme windy conditions, difficult conditions, tricky conditions. We don’t mind a good solid test. “We’re all happy that the temperature is to go up on Friday. We don’t have a problem with that. We’re relying on ourselves, not relying on outside agencies and the conditions. Maybe there is a little bit of an advantage for us if it does go that way, but as I’ve always said, we really have probably our best team ever of ball strikers, so we’re not relying on conditions to give us the edge.” The official forecast from DTN meteorologist Brad Nelson is as follows: “The morning on Friday will start out mostly sunny with light winds and temperatures in the 40’s. Increasing clouds can be expected through the day with pleasant weather conditions. Winds turn to the south-southwest at 10-20 mph while temperatures top out in the middle 70’s. A cold front moves through Whistling Straits Friday evening with rain becoming likely, mainly after 7p.m. This weekend will feature some fair-weather clouds at times and mild afternoon temperatures with chilly mornings. Breezy west winds are expected on Saturday, while weaker and turning southwest on Sunday.” Bonus Question: Who is going to win? Your guess is as good as mine. I’m saying 14-14! Of course, that would mean a happy European team would be able to take the Ryder Cup back across the Atlantic.
NASSAU, Bahamas — Jon Rahm turned a potential shootout into a Bahamas breeze Sunday, closing with a 7-under 65 for a four-shot victory in the Hero World Challenge. Starting the final round in a three-way tie with Tony Finau and Henrik Stenson, Rahm took the lead when Finau made bogey on the par-3 eighth hole, and the 24-year-old Spaniard never trailed the rest of the day at Albany Golf Club. Finau was the last challenger until the 14th hole, when he went from a sandy area to a bunker and over the green, leading to double bogey. Rahm made birdie on the hole, and suddenly had a five-shot lead without much trouble to get in the way. Rahm ends his year with three victories, just like in 2017, his first full year as a pro. And in some respects, it was a fitting end. Even with his individual trophies, no moment for Rahm will top facing Woods in the Sunday singles at the Ryder Cup and beating him on the 17th hole, putting the first point on the board for Europe that day. And then Rahm ended his year with Woods handing him the trophy from his holiday event. “That Sunday with Tiger is still the most emotionally, most important moment of my golf career,” Rahm said. “It means so much to play against Tiger. A couple months later, to win his event, it’s really special.” Even with a runaway victory, there was a small measure of drama on the final hole. Justin Rose, needing to finish in a three-way tie for second to return to No. 1 in the world, closed with a 65 and was in position to go back to the top of the ranking until Finau rolled in a 10-foot birdie putt for a 69 to finish alone in second. Brooks Koepka, who did not play this week, remains No. 1. Rose has one more event left in two weeks at the Indonesia Masters. Finau, meanwhile, cracked the top 10 for the first time in his career at No. 9. The tournament host was never in the picture until it was time to hand out the trophy. Woods got off to another rough start, rallied on the back nine and had to settle for a 1-over 73 to finish 17th against the 18-man field. He finished 19 shots behind, the biggest gap this year from the winner over 72 holes. “Overall, it was a long week, but one that I hope the players enjoyed,” Woods said. That starts with Rahm, who previously won the CareerBuilder Challenge on the PGA TOUR and the Spanish Open on the European Tour. He fell behind briefly when Finau rolled in a 20-foot birdie putt on the par-3 second, only to fall back into a share of the lead when a 4-foot par putt lipped out at No. 4. Rahm took a two-shot lead to the back nine with a 4-hybrid to 12 feet on the par-5 ninth that set up a two-putt birdie, and he held his own until Finau’s double bogey. Rahm, making his first trip to the Bahamas for this event, figured out early that the key to scoring at Albany were the five par 5s and two reachable par 4s. He made birdie on all seven of those holes Sunday. Stenson was only one shot behind when he made the turn, but the Swede made only one birdie on the back nine and finished alone in fourth. Patrick Cantlay was 12 shots better than Saturday, closing with a 64 to tie for fifth with defending champion Rickie Fowler.
Every week, Bryson DeChambeau watches a movie. Doesn’t matter if he’s stuck in a hotel room for an upcoming tournament or sitting comfortably at home in Dallas. Usually, it’s an action-adventure; one of his most recent choices is “Deadpool,â€� the wisecracking disfigured anti-superhero with the salty vocabulary. The special effects and dark humor are entertaining, but DeChambeau’s not watching for pleasure. He’s working out his brain. Using his travel-sized Neuropeak Pro brain-training unit, DeChambeau pops in the DVD, then attaches a gold-plated silver EEG sensor to his head. The real-time data he receives monitors the peaks and valleys of his brain’s electrical current as the movie unfolds. DeChambeau’s goal is to avoid the spikes that occur at the most stressful, intense parts; he wants to keep his high beta and theta ratios inside a pre-determined range. If the activity in his brain fires too high, the movie will immediately stop. Only when DeChambeau relaxes his brain – controlling his breathing, reducing his heart rate, focusing his mind to reach a calm state — will the movie resume playing. Maintaining a proper balance between the parasympathetic and sympathetic states, flattening out his EEG reading to eliminate the highs and lows – that’s the end game. Since the unit’s software automatically adjusts the optimal range after each session as he improves his performance level, DeChambeau never makes it through an entire movie without it stopping. He is constantly forced to get better. This learning process, called operant conditioning, modifies behavior through either reinforcement or punishment. For golfers, it’s generally limited to the range or practice rounds, made via physical adjustments to a swing following a wayward shot, swing coach critique or poor TrackMan reading. DeChambeau and his team at Neuropeak Pro have taken it to the next level, determined to gain a key advantage in a sport that Jack Nicklaus’ swing coach Jim Flick once famously declared as “90 percent mental – and the other 10 percent is mental, too.â€� The DVD exercise provides both instant negative feedback and positive reinforcement, teaching the brain the benefits of being calm, focused and stress-free. Thanks to the analytics that DeChambeau receives, he knows exactly what levels cause the movie to shut down and resume. “Everything is data-driven for him,â€� says Tim Bergsma, the Managing Director at Neuropeak Pro who works directly with DeChambeau. “Some people might say, ‘It’s just a golf ball – step up and hit it.’ But that’s not his approach. Never has been. Never will be. … “He doesn’t wake up in the morning and say, ‘Oh, I feel pretty relaxed. I feel like I slept OK. I feel like whatever muscle group is OK. That isn’t good enough. He wants data – and what we do is provide that data.â€� DeChambeau has been working with Neuropeak Pro for more than a year, but he didn’t openly discuss the Michigan-based company until last fall, just about the time he began a hot streak that hasn’t subsided. He’s won four times in his last 11 worldwide starts; in the seven events he didn’t win, he finished inside the top 10 three times and inside the top 20 the other four starts. Thanks to his Tiger-esque success rate, DeChambeau has vaulted to fifth in the world and enters this week’s World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship as one of the favorites. His team at Neuropeak Pro couldn’t be prouder. The company has worked with other athletes, including current Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins, who was a pre-med major with aspirations of becoming a surgeon prior to recognizing the value of throwing a football. It has worked with other golfers, including former TOUR pro Blake Adams, and with other athletes – their identities remain private – who’ve reached the top of their professions. High-level executives and other top professionals also have trained with Neuropeak Pro. Yet it’s doubtful any athlete has come along more suited for brain training that DeChambeau. The Mad Scientist – while not an official nickname, it’s in his PGA TOUR bio – was a physics major at SMU and has been relentless in his pursuit of optimizing his mind in search of an edge on the rest of the field. He’s quickly grasped the theories behind Neuropeak’s methods. While most of the company’s clients receive the basic client education – at one-sheet overview or list of bullet points — DeChambeau was given the full book to consume. “He’s as educated as half of my staff,â€� Bergsma admits. Adds Dr. Tim Royer, the founder of Neuropeak Pro who recently left the company in order to pursue clinical work: “Bryson is kind of like that perfect storm because he’s got the athletic ability and he also has the intellect to understand what it is that’s going on with his brain and body when we connect all that to the computer. So for him, it makes complete sense. “It’s not like it’s sports psychology … it’s actual technology, teaching the brain to fire differently.â€� Two months ago at Woods’ Hero World Challenge, DeChambeau made his last start of the 2018 calendar year. At that point, he had won three of his previous six starts, and four since May when he claimed the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide. He wasn’t happy with his performance in the Bahamas (he would eventually finish T-12 in the 18-man field) and wanted to start rectifying the issues with a post-round range session. He delayed his practice, though, to take time to discuss his brain training. Asked how much it had contributed to his success, DeChambeau replied: “There’s a reason why I’ve won four times this year. That’s my statement on that.â€� Helping athletes reach their optimum mental potential was not necessarily the primary objective when Dr. Royer created Neuropeak Pro. He wanted to address sleep problems, anxiety issues, depression, ADHD – neurological issues usually treated by a ligand-gated change in the brain, when a chemical or drug is the prescribed solution. Xanax, for instance, to slow down the brain. Of course, a single pill is a temporary solution. Dr. Royer and his team sought a permanent solution through a voltage-gated change, with the brain actually forming new pathways through advanced training. No chemicals needed. “If we step back and think about it, what is our brain doing all the time?â€� Royer explains. “It’s learning constantly. When you learned the alphabet at one point, that wasn’t a ligand-gated change; that was a voltage-gated change where your brain learned that this abstract shape called the letter ‘A’ is going to be the letter ‘A’ the rest of your life. That was a pathway that was formed. That’s much stronger than a ligand-gated change that wear off over time. The Xanax wears off, the stimulant wears off. … “If you think about somebody who can’t focus and they’re taking a medicine to focus and they’ve been doing this for 20 years – and all of a sudden we’re able to do some technology and teach the brain to focus to the point that they don’t need that medicine anymore. They don’t need that anxiety medicine or depression medicine or the sleep medicine because we’re changing how the brain is firing.â€� The results are encouraging. Royer says three months after clients begin working with Neuropeak Pro to solve a focusing problem, approximately 80 percent are able to eliminate at least half of their chemical usage. Some are able to wean themselves completely off drugs. Eventually, the company began working with clients who weren’t battling neurological problems but simply wanted to get the most of their brain – especially in a competitive environment, whether it’s a board room, a football field or, in DeChambeau’s case, a golf course. Knowing that a person’s body relies on electrical current – and that the brain chews up 20 percent of that electricity – is the first step in understanding the process. “We make electricity all the time, but unlike an iPhone, we don’t plug into the wall,â€� Royer says. “We’re actually our own internal power plant.â€� So how does the body make electricity? Royer points to these four elements: • Drinking water. “If you don’t have water, you can’t make electrical current. That’s why hydration is really big in sports.â€� • Eating food. “I need food in order for the brain to function. The thing about that, though, is I can go for a while without food and my brain will still work.â€� • Sleeping. “If I go seven days without sleep, I would go psychotic, and by day 13, I would die.â€� • Breathing – the most important element. “90 percent of the electrical current we make comes from oxygen.â€� Adds Royer: “If you go out on the TOUR and you’re watching these guys, everybody is into the shakes, the new bar, the new nutrition, new carbless diet, whatever it is. Those are super-important but they’re nowhere near as important as how we’re using oxygen. So one of the first phases before we ever get to the brain training is teaching the golfer how to use oxygen in a way that they can keep their brain in a balanced state.â€� It starts with something simple: Counting breaths. Neuropeak Pro has identified a golfer’s swing routine, from lining up his target to finishing his back swing, as a three-breath process. The breaths are not short and shallow, but elongated, with a nice, smooth rhythm. Achieving consistency in how you breathe is key. Predictable breathing helps the heart achieve a predictable beat, and thus creates a point of action that’s predictable. Military snipers are trained on this technique – taking deep, calm breaths, then pulling the trigger at the point where their heart is at rest. “The things we taught Bryson are the same things we taught special forces,â€� Royer says. “When he strikes the ball, it’s just like he’s pulling a trigger on a rifle.â€� When DeChambeau was first tested, his breathing while swinging a club was already at a high level of consistency. “But naturally, with anything he does, he wanted to fine-tune it because pretty good isn’t good enough,â€� Bergsma said. “Perfection is the goal.â€� Ideally, on the breath when DeChambeau makes contact with the ball, it comes at the end of inhale and a mid-point of exhale. Being able to monitor exactly when he strikes the ball – either by wearing a breathing belt, a chest strap or other sensors while on the range – allows him to work toward that goal. Just stepping onto the course and immediately inducing a predictive breathing pattern is not realistic, of course. It has to be part of your body’s 24/7 routine. The average human, according to Bergsma, takes between 12 and 18 breaths a minute. The higher end of the range, the more stress is involved. That’s called the sympathetic state, otherwise known as fight or flight. Fewer breaths results in a parasympathetic state – rest and digest. From Neuropeak Pro’s perspective, they would like to see DeChambeau somewhere around six controlled breaths per minute. Time yourself – it’s not easy. “Well, it’s a standard,â€� DeChambeau smiles when told how tough it seems. “Everybody’s different. Depending on how much you’ve used your body and other factors, it’s going to change based on what your heart wants and needs. “Your heart is an organ and sometimes it has a mind of its own, but it’s all about how the brain is working. The more you can get the brain to unleash its potential by providing oxygen and giving it in the right environment, the better you’re going to be able to think and understand certain situations.â€� Let’s try to explain it with a lion and a zebra. PRACTICE YOUR BREATHING Consider the central nervous system of the brain as a thermostat that’s constantly reading the environment and making adjustments based on the body’s five senses. When a zebra sees a lion, the zebra’s nervous system will speed up for fear of its life. That’s the sympathetic fight-or-flight state – and hopefully the zebra will successfully flee to live another day. But when the zebra doesn’t see a lion, it lives a peaceful, calm existence, relaxing by the nearest watering hole. It is not thinking about the lion. It has returned to a parasympathetic state, with calm, controlled breathing. Stanford neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky wrote a wonderfully titled book about this, “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers,â€� which explains that the zebra’s stress was episodic. Unfortunately, stress for most humans is chronic. We’re constant worriers. “The zebra isn’t sitting down by the river with the baby zebras and wondering how to get them into Harvard or what his 401k is doing. He lives in the environment,â€� Royer says. “As humans, we have the capacity to override our environment with our frontal lobe. That’s what makes us unique from animals. The frontal lobe is bigger than an animal’s, so it lets me think about the future, the present and the past all in just a few seconds. “So I don’t have to see the lion to create a sympathetic response. I can just be sitting here looking out at the lake, and all of a sudden I start thinking about things that make me act as if I’m seeing the lion. “This is the problem in sports. Instead of being present and getting direct input from the environment, we start to override that with our thought process that says, ‘What if I miss this putt? What about the last putt where I didn’t see it right?’ … “We start to think about the past and the present and the future all at once. I’m not going to die from hitting that golf ball. It’s not going to kill me. It’s not life or death – but my brain makes it as if it is, and therefore I slip into sympathetic.â€� As a result, pupils start to dilate. Depth perception and peripheral vision are constricted by about 50 percent. The heart rate accelerates while cortisol and adrenaline are produced. Breathing that averaged 16 or 18 breaths per minute now spikes into the 20s or more. Thus, learning how to avoid those slippages is a big part of DeChambeau’s brain training. Since the Neuropeak Pro team isn’t about to stick him in a game reserve to face an uncaged lion, they have movies with stress points, putting him in situations that he must control in order to continue watching. They also challenge him with stimuli that test his ability to understand and adapt. For instance, DeChambeau has a playlist of music that he loves listening to – he’ll close his eyes, and his brain will immediately go into a calm, creative no-stress state. But then the music will flip to something he doesn’t favor – death metal, for instance – and his stress level will spike. Essentially, he’s creating a speedometer for his brain, knowing what it’s like to be at 0 mph to, say, 120 mph. “With that speedometer, he has the skill to get himself right where he needs to be, where he can be laser-focused,â€� Bergsma says. “To stay calm and execute and not letting that noise getting in the way.â€� Respiration rate is one touchpoint. Cardiovascular data is also analyzed, including how much resiliency the heart has for stress. The higher the stress, the less capacity for the heart to handle more stress. Being able to determine DeChambeau’s allostatic bandwidth helps with the measurements and metrics. For some sessions with DeChambeau, either at home or at a hotel room the night before a round, Bergsma will hook up his client to a monitor and evaluate 18 different data points. One of the key factors is the high beta number that measures fast brain waves. An ideal high beta number is anything under 1. In a test of 1,000 people, the average high beta is usually 1.7. “High beta is what’s killing our culture,â€� Royer says. “It’s what’s causing all the stress-related illnesses. We’re not getting enough sleep and our brains are racing too much because we’re addicted to multitasking. “Performance in golf is a microcosm of the problem that exists in our overall culture. It’s hard for us to make a putt because we’re overthinking. We’re not resting enough. In golf, too much high beta means sporadic performance. Can’t focus under pressure.â€� Neuropeak Pro has worked with a former world No. 1 golfer whose high beta measured 0.65, who had the ability to stay present and avoid the electrical spikes of stress. A former No. 1 in tennis was measured at 0.68. A former basketball MVP also was at 0.68. When DeChambeau first started, his high beta exceeded 1.0, but he has since lowered it to a much more desirable level (Neuropeak would not reveal the actual number). He’s made that improvement because he constantly works on his autonomic nervous system, even when he’s not at the course. Royer calls it “continuous golf.â€� The physical swinging of clubs in any given round may add up to only 80 seconds, but it’s the hours before and after the round that dictate how stress is handled. “I couldn’t care less when he’s swinging the club,â€� Royer said. “I care more about what he was doing the night before, what he was doing when he woke up, what he was doing as he’s walking towards the ball. “ Avoiding peaks and valleys are key, and DeChambeau’s ability to stay constant and present are reflected in his consistency on the course. In his last 28 worldwide starts, he’s missed only one cut and had just seven finishes outside the top 25. Scoring wise, of his 93 rounds on the PGA TOUR last season, 61 were under par, and another 10 were at par. He never shot lower than 63 nor higher than 76. In other words, not the lowest scores on TOUR, but also not the highest. “His ability to maintain consistency – that’s true on the golf course but it’s also true with his brain numbers,â€� Bergsma says. “… Think about it like stepping on a scale. There are things you could do, but once you step on the scale, that number is the number. You can’t just close your eyes and try to make it go up and down. “That’s true of most people’s brains as well. But what Bryson has the ability to do is to step on the brain scale and then take a couple of minutes and change what the number is because of his ability to shift and move and sway his own brain.â€� The importance of achieving consistency is even reflected in what he wears to cover his brain – a flat cap that honors Ben Hogan, whom DeChambeau greatly admires for his “ability to repeat motion, consistently execute shots.â€� Hogan did it through relentless hours of practice, famously digging it out of the dirt. Likewise, few put in more hours on the range than DeChambeau, but he’s adding another layer with mental consistency. “It’s just a part of learning every week, every day, every hour, every golf shot,â€� DeChambeau says. “We’re trying to get better every single moment.â€� While all this information seems like next-level thinking, it’s obviously not for every golfer. Not everybody wants to dance with the latest technology. Bergsma recalls being on a practice green at a TOUR event last season. DeChambeau is hooked up to his monitors and is putting towards a coaster he brought with him that was the exact size of a cup. Meanwhile, another golfer had simply picked up a nearby leaf to aim at. “Everybody has a different approach,â€� laughs Bergsma. But clearly DeChambeau’s approach is working for him. Less than a year ago, he was 93rd in the world rankings. Now he’s the world’s highest-ranked golfer without a major. Yes, his approach may seem unconventional – the brain training, the single-length shafts, the other scientific methods he explains in ways that often are difficult to comprehend. Yet there’s one thing every golf fan can understand: Number of wins. DeChambeau has five on TOUR — four coming in the calendar year of 2018. At age 25, he’s only getting started. “You guys haven’t seen what he’s going to become yet,â€� Royer says. “The way he’s applying himself and what his abilities are neurologically under the surface – I mean, we haven’t even really started. “Over the next year or two, if he keep going at the rate he’s going, from a neurological standpoint he’ll be untouchable.â€�
