19th Hole
Bryson DeChambeau explains why you should start TOPPING the ball on the range
In an 11 minute interview from the range at the third LIV event, Bryson DeChambeau talks about the recovery of his hand injury, his long drive impetus, how he is helping set up a multi-sport complex, and how he tops the ball in practice. On purpose.
LIV reporter Troy Mullins caught up with the 2020 US Open champion for a chat about “anything and everything,” before watching him warm up with a 7-iron – “chipping.”
“What distance is chipping for you?” she asks, and finds the answer is no surprise. “7-iron….205…then I go start hitting it …220…220 yards.”
Bryson freely runs through his routine in a thoroughly engaging piece, even saying that sometimes he enjoys topping the ball, just “clipping it….for radius control,” before saying he is “kidding, by the way.”
Or is he?
The next minute-or-so sees the 28-year-old go through a ‘topping’ routine – he taps the top of the ball to “kind of give my brain an awareness of where that is,” before inviting Troy to hit the perfect top, which she pulls off first try.
She asks, “What does that do for the average player?” and Bryson answers it gives an “awareness of where the bottom of the club is.”
The BDC philosophy is that golfers chunking the ball do not have an awareness of where the bottom of the arc is, and shows us a “low, running top” and a short one. Hey, this is Bryson. He does it his way.
“I know it’s a crazy drill. People think I’m nuts for it, but I’ve done it since I was a kid.” says the seven-time PGA Tour winner. “We [Bryson’s old coach Mike Schy] did it all the time. We did it at the US Junior.”
Troy then asks how Bryson is “doing with your hand?” before he removes his glove to show the scar.
“It’s definitely better. It’s not 100 percent, but it’s getting there.”
Given he finished eighth in the final major of the year – the 150th Open Championship – he sure looks to be coming back to top form.
With the first half of 2022 being basically a washout, he returned to form at St. Andrews when ranking top-10 in strokes-gained off-the-tee, approaches and tee-to-green, his best figures on the main tours for nearly a year.
Bryson says his hand is at around “80 percent strength compared to his right hand, but a couple of weeks ago it was 60 percent.” It’s slow, but it’s getting there.
When Bryson originally signed for LIV, he mentioned it was a “business decision” and, in the interview, he confirms his intention to open a multi-sport complex.
“It started with a vision of the long drive, in the beginning, and from that I said, ‘Why not do it for every sport?’ Create a high-performance centre for every sport, but also allow the public to come and utilize the facilities.”
The plan is to have a membership type of programme but also allow the public access to a facility that will have long-drive grids, driving ranges, baseball fields, soccer fields..basketball courts, and to start to grow and develop the area of Dallas in that regard.”
Implementing the idea is not far off.
“We are acquiring the land here, hopefully by the end of this year, and then will be going forward after that.”
Bryson agrees with Troy, herself a long-drive competitor, that training as a youngster should involve more than, “golf, golf, golf, golf, golf,” clearly wishing to see his vision allow multi-sports to be a key in the building of all-round strength and power, rather than just golf-specific training.
Bryson has his detractors, and not everyone will agree with him, but this is an interview that shows a very human side to a player formally seen as very robotic.
Yes, we have the ubiquitous few minutes of Bryson getting to 205/206mph ball speed, but the interview doesn’t take itself too seriously, and it’s certainly far more engaging that many of the pressers wrapped in controversy from the last two months!
More from the 19th Hole
19th Hole
‘Don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight’ – LPGA pro offers candid take following rough AIG Women’s Open finish
An opening round of 77 left LPGA pro Jenny Shin with a mountain to climb at last week’s AIG Women’s Open.
However, fighting back with rounds of 69 and 67, Shin found herself six shots off the lead and just outside the top 10 heading into Sunday as she went in search of her first major victory.
Shin, who won the US Girls’ Junior at just 13, couldn’t back those rounds up on Sunday, though, and after playing her opening nine holes of the final round in level par, she then bogeyed three holes coming home to slip down the leaderboard and eventually finish T23.
Taking to X following the final round, Shin offered a frustrated and honest take on how she was feeling, posting: “Don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight. What a crappy way to finish.”
Don’t think I’ll sleep well tonight. What a crappy way to finish
— Jenny Shin (@JennyShin_LPGA) August 3, 2025
Shin has made 11 cuts in 13 starts on the LPGA Tour this season, but has been plagued by frustrating Sunday finishes throughout the year. Shin ranks 102nd on tour this year out of 155 for Round 4 scoring in 2025.
Miyu Yamashita won the 2025 AIG Women’s Open with a composed final round of 70 to win her first major of her career by two strokes.
Cameron Young won the Wyndham Championship on Sunday for his first victory on the PGA Tour.
Young dominated all weekend at TPC Sedgefield, running away from the pack to win by six strokes and put himself in contention for a Ryder Cup pick in September.
Ahead of the event, the 28-year-old switched to a Pro V1x prototype golf ball for the first time, following recent testing sessions with the Titleist Golf Ball R&D team.
Interestingly, Young played a practice round accompanied by Fordie Pitts, Titleist’s Director of Tour Research & Validation, at TPC Schedule early last week with both his usual Pro V1 Left Dot ball and the new Pro V1x prototype.
Per Titleist, by the second hole Young was exclusively hitting shots with the Pro V1x prototype.
“We weren’t sure if he was going to test it this week, but as he was warming up, he asked to hit a couple on the range,” Pitts said. “He was then curious to see some shots out on the course. Performance-wise, he was hitting tight draws everywhere. His misses were staying more in play. He hit some, what he would call ‘11 o’clock shots,’ where again he’s taking a little something off it. He had great control there.”
According to Titleist, the main validation came on Tuesday on the seventh hole of his practice round. The par 3 that played between 184 and 225 yards during the tournament called for a 5-iron from Young, or so he thought. Believing there was “no way” he could get a 6-iron to the flag with his Left Dot, Young struck a 5-iron with the Pro V1x prototype and was stunned to see the ball land right by the hole.
“He then hits this 6-iron [with the Pro V1x prototype] absolutely dead at the flag, and it lands right next to the pin, ending up just past it,” Pitts said. “And his response was, ‘remarkable.’ He couldn’t believe that he got that club there.”
Following nine holes on Tuesday and a further nine on Wednesday, Young asked the Titleist team to put the ProV1x balls in his locker. The rest, as they say, is history.
Rickie Fowler fired an opening round of one-under par on Thursday at the Wyndham Championship, as the Californian looks to make a FedEx Cup playoff push.
Fowler is currently 61st in the standings, so will need a strong couple of weeks to extend his season until the BMW Championship, where only the top 50 in the standings will tee it up.
Heading into the final stretch of the season, Fowler has made an equipment switch of note, changing into new iron shafts, as well as making a switch to his driver shaft.
The 36-year-old revealed this week that he has switched from his usual KBS Tour C-Taper 125-gram steel shafts to the graphite Aerotech SteelFiber 125cw shafts in his Cobra King Tour irons, a change he first put into play at last month’s Travelers Championship.
Speaking on the change to reporters this week, Fowler made note that the graphite shafts offer “something that’s a little easier on the body.”
“I mean, went to the week of Travelers, so been in for, I guess that’s a little over a month now. Something that’s a little easier on the body and seemed to get very similar numbers to where I was at. Yeah, it’s gone well so far.”
Fowler has also made a driver shaft change, switching out his Mitsubishi Diamana WB 73 TX for a UST Mamiya Lin-Q Proto V1 6 TX driver shaft in his Cobra DS-Adapt X, which he first implemented a couple of weeks ago at the John Deere Classic.
However, according to Fowler himself, the testing and potential changes are not done yet.
“Probably do some more testing in some different weight configurations with them once I get some time. Yeah, I feel like we’re always trying to search, one, to get better but are there ways to make things easier, whether that’s physically, mentally, whatever it may be. So yeah, I thought they were good enough to obviously put into play and looking forward to doing some more testing.”
Fowler gets his second round at TPC Sedgefield underway at 7.23 a.m ET on Friday.
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