Bryson DeChambeau & # 39; s Ball Quest Pushes Him Out of Masters Hunt

AUGUSTA, Georgia – It was almost a given that Bryson DeChambeau would do something memorable at this year's Masters tournament. It didn't seem like it was a thumping tee shot so high in the Georgia sky that it landed clearly out of sight.

Just as astonishing: that swing, and the resulting penalty for a lost ball, could cause DeChambeau, the pre-tournament favorite, to miss the cut and be sent home from the Masters 2020 on Saturday. Friday's missing tee shot caused a three-hole kind of meltdown for DeChambeau when he slammed his ball around the course and dropped five strokes to the leaders.

So far it was Masters like that for DeChambeau, who arrived at the Augusta National Golf Club and was overwhelmed by a wave of publicity for his wonderfully long rides. But in his first two rounds, keeping his shots straight was a big deal.

Consider a Friday night exchange between a reporter and Jon Rahm, one of DeChambeau & # 39; s playing partners for the past two days:

] Reporter: "Were you involved in the search for the Bryson's ball? "

Rahm: "Which one?"

More on that later. The far-fetched drama for DeChambeau started on the third hole.

At that point DeChambeau, who had six holes to play on Friday in a shortened second round, was enjoying one above the tournament. of a revival of a tournament. After a bumpy start early Thursday, he had rallied to get to two under par, lurking behind the quartet that now runs the event: Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Abraham Ancer and Cameron Smith, all nine under were after finishing their second rounds

The 350-meter, par-4 third hole should be an easy catch. On Friday, DeChambeau hit a shot that landed about 20 yards off his green and just to the left of the fairway in a high rough. The ball disappeared into the grass. On multiple, slow-motion reruns of televisions, the white sphere appeared to have descended about 300 yards from the tee and disappeared when it hit the grass.

In golf this is known as a clogged ball and is often only visible when someone is standing straight over it and staring straight down, but as the 2020 Masters are run without spectators there were no fans around the hole to direct DeChambeau to the correct location.

When DeChambeau landed the area where his tee shot landed, it was clear that he would need reinforcements if he ever found the ball. Augusta National is typically an outlier as a championship golf course because there is no tall grass outside the fairways. But that's during its traditional April setting.

Postponed to November due to the coronavirus pandemic, the tournament will be played on terrains with some pitches with grass several inches high and which on Friday was left drenched by small puddles from a rain shower the day before

DeChambeau trampled the grass near where his ball appeared to have landed. Rahm and their fellow playing partner, Louis Oosthuizen, joined him, as did their caddies and tournament leaders. At one point, a group of 14 men stomped through the grass in search of DeChambeau & # 39; s Bridgestone golf ball.

Based on replays on television, it appeared that they were looking about 10 meters to the left of where they should have been looking. . A rules officer began timing the episode because after three minutes any ball that cannot be found is considered lost, incurring a one-stroke penalty and the player having to go back and replay his shot from where he hit it . That's counted as the player's third hit on the hole, which is enough to make any golfer sick.

An increasingly troubled DeChambeau plaintively asked official Ken Tackett's lines while the clock was ticking: "So you" say if we can't find it – it's a lost ball?

Yes, indeed. DeChambeau began to wonder aloud whether the wet conditions were what made the golf rule book & # 39; non-binding water & # 39; and whether that could protect him from the one-hit penalty and return to the tee. Tackett shook his head: no.

The time was up and the ball was officially lost. DeChambeau climbed into a golf cart and hit another ball off the third tee. It hit almost the same spot as the previous ball, except it bounced and remained visible. But when DeChambeau returned to the scene, it was clear the whole incident had shocked him.

He sent a short chip, his fourth shot to the hole, and flew 20 yards over the green. His throw jumped another 5 meters past the hole from there. Two putts later, DeChambeau had a confusing, daunting double bogey.

"I know it hit him a little bit because he didn't play his best golf after that," said Rahm.

] Rahm was empathetic and diplomatic.

Looking exhausted, DeChambeau hooked his urge to the fourth hole, then knocked an iron out of the rough – "Oh, I brought it out," he yelled after the swing.

He started playing considerably faster and barely took a few shots before hitting them, as if he had an Uber car waiting to remove him from the scene. It was an unconscious response that any everyday duffer would have recognized – the kind of thing golfers do when their minds are overcome by a mix of annoyance and embarrassment.

Consecutive bogeys followed on the fourth and fifth holes. Now DeChambeau, who refused to come into the clubhouse interview area late on Friday, was four times above par for his round.

Rahm, who was also part of the search group that Thursday helped DeChambeau find a ball he fired. in the azalea bushes behind the 13th green, understood what his playing partner was going through.

"It's a shame the rules of golf don't let you figure out it's somewhere and keep playing – because he had to start over," said Rahm. "I mean, when Bryson is just as loud when it hits it and it has some sort of hooking with not much spin in a soft area, we were all sure it was quite buried and it would be hard to find. "

It stretches to his credit DeChambeau made a comeback, birdie on three of the next nine holes after his debacle on the third, but missed a four foot putt on the eighth hole after an excellent drive and a precise approach shot. is not out of the tournament yet, although finding a way to compete will be a spectacular rally on his last six holes to close the second round on Saturday.

"He's a fighter and he lets seeing it ", Rahm said.

Yet it was, all in all , not the way DeChambeau wanted to make his mark on golf's most significant event.

There was one last humiliation to end DeChambeau's day: Rahm said the missing golf ball was found in the tall grass near the third green minutes after the search for it ended.