Transformed DeChambeau Edges McIlroy for 2nd U.S. Open Victory

VILLAGE OF PINEHURST, N.C. -- The 2024 U.S. Open that Bryson DeChambeau won on Sunday with a spectacular par save from a bunker on the 18th hole was completely different from the one he won in late 2020 at Winged Foot. The tournament was pushed back to the fall, and there were virtually no spectators because that was The Year of Covid. And DeChambeau was completely different, too.

That Bryson DeChambeau was basically the same guy who had emerged in 2015, when he became just the fifth player to win the NCAA and U.S. Amateur championships in the same year. That DeChambeau was a kind of mad scientist, the SMU physics major who decided that the usual iron specifications weren't for him, and instead, had all of his irons made with shafts of the same length. The late Payne Stewart, who had preceded DeChambeau at SMU by three decades, was one of his heroes. But DeChambeau wasn't much like the gregarious Stewart.

He was more like Ben Hogan, a loner who seemed to spent most of his time coming up with eccentric theories about how to improve his golf game. The crowds at tournaments didn't like him all that much back then, and he didn't really care.

That, however, wasn't the Bryson DeChambeau who showed up at Pinehurst No. 2 last week, and mixed with the crowds throughout the Open week, signing autographs for disabled kids during tournament rounds, and eventually celebrating his victory with anyone who happened to have stuck around after the tournament had ended and the trophy had been awarded.

This Bryson DeChambeau was no longer a Hogan clone. Instead, he was a lot more like Arnold Palmer, one of the two most popular professional golfers of the last 60 years, Tiger Woods being the other one. (Dan Jenkins once wrote that Arnold Palmer "invented golf on the back nine of the Masters in 1960," and that was essentially true. Palmer's success -- he won the Masters four times, in 1958, '60, '62 and '64, plus a U.S. Open and two British Opens -- combined with his go-for-broke style and his personality were more responsible than anything else for the golf boom in the '60s.)

DeChambeau now talks a lot about promoting the game and doing what's best for golf.

Some other things hadn't changed, however. DeChambeau still hits a golf ball prodigious distances. He was No. 1 in the Driviing Distance stats at the Open, with an average of 337.9 yards per drive. (Rory McIlroy, who finished second in the tournament, was also No. 2 in the driving stats, at 335.6.

Nevertheless, DeChambeau didn't win on Sunday by overpowering the course. He won by improvising his way to a lot of pars from places other than the fairways, and that was how he sealed the victory.

After hitting what might have been his worst drive of the day at the 449-yard, par-4 18th hole, DeChambeau found his ball a few feet from a tree, which restricted his swing. So he basically slapped a second shot across the fairway and into a bunker in front of the green. The 50-yard bunker shot he was now facing is a nightmare, even for the best players in the world. But DeChambeau pulled out a 55-degree wedge, and after being told "You can do this," by his caddie, Greg Bodine, he blasted the ball to within 4 feet of the cup and made the putt.

That gave him a final-round 71 (1 over) and a 72-hole total of 274 (6 under), which was good enough to beat Rory McIlroy, who closed with a 69, by a single stroke.

When it was over, McIlroy had to be wondering what happened. He should have won the tournament. The four-time major champion had put on a remarkable display of power and putting for 69 holes and was leading DeChambeau by one shot as he stood over a 2-foot par putt on the 16th green. At that point, he was 3 under for the round, and he had made 10 of 10 putts under 10 feet on Sunday. He had made 53 of 56 putts under 10 feet during the tournament . But he missed the 2-footer at No. 16, and he missed another short par putt on the 18th hole.

And with that, the stage was set for DeChambeau's dramatic par save a few minutes later, with a shot that he called "probably the best shot of my life."

The change in DeChambeau's persona began with the death of his father, due to complications from kidney failure, in November of 2022. It marked a low point for him, in his golf game, and in his life generally.

"A lot of people helped me get through that," he said Sunday.

DeChambeau had a three-shot lead going into Sunday's final round, but the round didn't start all that well. He was 1 over on the front nine, the result of a wayward drive at the fifth hole. Up ahead of him, McIlroy birdied the par-3 ninth hole to pull within one, and he made a 25-foot birdie putt at the par-5 10th to pull even. DeChambeau hit a 40-yard wedge shot close and matched McIlroy's birdie at the 10th with one of his own.

But McIlroy made a 20-footer for birdie at the long, 489-yard, par-4 12th, and DeChambeau lost another drive to the right, which resulted in another bogey.

That put McIlroy in front, and he made his third birdie in four holes by flying his tee shot onto the green at the par-4 13th hole -- where the tees were moved up Sunday, and the hole was playing just over 300 yards -- and getting up and down for birdie.

DeChambeau, now two behind, his a fairway metal wood onto the green at the 13th and nearly made the eagle putt.

McIlroy hit his 7-iron tee shot over the green at the 205-yard, par-3 15th and made a bogey, but DeChambeau bogeyed it, too. Then came the missed 2-footer by McIlroy at the 16th, for his second bogey in a row. DeChambeau was still having trouble finding fairways (he hit only four of 14 on Sunday), but he was done missing putts. McIlroy wasn't. At the 18th, he missed the green with his second shot, but hit a pretty good chip to 3 1/2 feet.

The resulting putt was a left-to-right breaker, and McIlroy started it at the left edge of the hole, but the putt broke sharply to the right in the last 6 inches, and singed the cup. It was another bitter disappointment for McIlroy, who keeps coming close in major championships, but hasn't won one since 2014.

DeChambeau received $4.3 million for the effort. McIlroy got $2,322,000 for second.

Patrick Cantlay seemed to be one or two strokes out of the lead all weekend, and especially Sunday. He kept hitting good shots for the most part, but not making the putts he needed to make to join DeChambeau and McIlroy at the top of the leaderboard. He closed with a 70 on Sunday and tied Tony Finau for third, one behind McIlroy at 276. Finau was in the hunt on Saturday until he went bogey-triple on 12 and 13. On Sunday, he bogeyed two of the first four holes and sort of disappeared. But he eagled the 582-yard, par-5 fifth hole and shot 32 on the back nine. His 67 equaled the best score of the day.

Another shot back, at 277, was Matthieu Pavon. He, like Cantlay, spent the weekend lurking in the shadows of DeChambeau and McIlroy. But he hung in there and ended up in sole possession of fifth at 277, after posting a 71 on Sunday.



024 U.S. Open

At Pinehurst No. 2

Par 70, 7,569 yards

Village of Pinehurst, N.C.

Final results

1. Bryson DeChambeau $4,300,000 67-69-67-71--274 (-6)

2. Rory McIlroy $2,322,000 65-72-69-69--275

T3. Patrick Cantlay $1,229,051 65-71-70-70--276

T3. Tony Finau $1,229,051 68-69-72-67--276

5. Matthieu Pavon $843,765 67-70-69-71--277

6. Hideki Matsuyama $748,154 72-66-70-70--278

T7. Russell Henley $639,289 70-70-72-67--279

T7. Xander Schauffele $639,289 70-69-72-68--279

T9. Corey Conners $502,391 69-70-71-70--280

T9. Sam Burns $502,391 73-67-73-67--280

T9. Davis Thompson $502,291 70-72-70-68--280

T12. Ludvig Aberg $409,279 66-69-73-73--281

T12. Sergio Garcia $409,279 69-71-71-70--280

T14. Thomas Detry $351,370 69-67-76-70--282

T14. Collin Morikawa $351,370 70-74-66-72--282

T41. Scottie Scheffler $84,377 71-74-71-72--288

T41. Frankie Capan $84,377 71-70-76-71--288

T70. Gunnar Broin (a) 75-68-81-72--296

Missed cut -- 145

Tiger Woods 74-73--147

Erik Van Rooyen 76-72--148

Tom Hoge 75-73--148