LThe Augusta Masters leaderboard can be measured with different thermometers. It can be calibrated in the oft-used comparison of the PGA Tour and LIV. Only two players from the rebel league, Bryson DeChambeau and Tyrrell Hatton, are fighting for the jacket at the halfway point. Also by the immediate, the fight between Europeans and Americans that will culminate in September in the battle of Bethpage in the Ryder Cup. There the forces are unbalanced. Rose, McIlroy, Hatton, Rasmus Hojgaard and Lowry on one side, against DeChambeau and Scheffler. But if what is being measured is the decibels, there is no discussion of who the parish wants to win: the burly and scientific DeChambeau.
He finished the day with a 68 that put him in second place, after five birdies and a bogey, and walked down the aisle from the 18th green to the card-collecting building, slapping his palm with everyone who demanded it, like the triumphant players on the TV show. He was a happy guy, happy because the work is paying off. Late on Thursday, as night fell, and despite a good round of 69, he was on the practice range hitting balls. No one is working harder than him at this Masters. “I was opening the clubface too much and I wanted to correct it,” he revealed.
There is no aspect of the game that he has not worked on. Before the tournament he scrutinized several drivers to see which ones went to the right, which ones went to the left and which ones had too much backspin to choose the right one. Looking at past statistics, he has been practicing five to eight meter putts this year to improve his performance. Even his moments of distraction on the YouTube channel are about golf. He challenges amateurs to fly with a shot over the roof of his house and that kind of challenge that goes viral. It was already seen when last year he won the US Open. In charisma he is far superior to Scottie Scheffler, who was not super in the second round.
“I’m excited,” he revealed when he was one stroke behind Justin Rose, the much more low-key Englishman than on Thursday. Rose, however, is still breaking records at the top. He is the third oldest halfway leader in Masters history. He has led five times on the first day, one more than Nicklaus, although he does not yet have a jacket. In a sport that never boasted excessive obsession with high-performance machinery, he has brought a health and wellness truck with steam room, oxygen machine that breathes through a mask and a cold room to lower lactate.
DeChambeau was undoubtedly the hero of Thursday along with Rory McIlroy. The Northern Irishman took a good hit on Thursday after the two double bogeys almost consecutively. But he has a dominant reset ability. Also in reverse. At the 2010 Open Championship he went from a 63 to an 80 in 24 hours. On Friday he went the other way and without bogeys. He shot 66 with an eagle on the 13th and four birdies.
“I was frustrated on Thursday,” he admitted. So much so that he didn’t even stop to talk to the press. “It was a good reminder to know that in this championship you always have to be alert.” He ran home to see his daughter before she went to bed, which he appreciated. And on Friday morning he spoke with old Bob Rotella, the first of the psychologists who approached the sport, who reminded him that golf is 18 holes and that it was not necessary to be impatient. In the first nine holes he only made one birdie. The firework display came afterwards. He made 31 strokes for the second nine. Patience will crown the winner.
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