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AUGUSTA, Ga. — Bryson DeChambeau is playing the Masters this week against his doctor’s orders.
The 28-year-old DeChambeau has been battling a torn labrum in his left hip and a hairline fracture in his left hand, injuries that caused him to pull out of last month’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, where he was defending champion, and the Players Championship.
He’s played twice since then, a tie for 58th at the WGC-Dell Match Play and a missed cut at last week’s Valero Texas Open.
“The past few weeks have been very, very difficult on me, not playing well and not hitting it anywhere near where I know I should be hitting it in regards to straight,” DeChambeau said Monday. “Yelling ‘fore’ off the tee every time is just not fun. It’s very difficult on your mental psyche as well. It’s one of those things that everybody has a tough stretch in their career. It’s a learning experience. I’ve always said, your worst failures are your best teachers.”
He conceded that his doctors “recommended that I don’t come back for a while,’’ adding, “They are like, ‘You should really let it heal.’ And even Chris [Como, his coach] has told me, ‘You probably shouldn’t play,’ even though he wants me to play obviously. But he’s really looking out for my best interests for the future.
“I’m like, man, this only comes around once a year, and I’ve got to give this a go.”
DeChambeau, who’s played in five Masters with his best finish a tie for 21st in 2016 when he was the low amateur, said it was “a huge risk to play a couple weeks ago, it was probably not one that my doctors recommended, but I decided to do so because I wanted to give this [the Masters] tournament a run.“You know me guys, I always like kind of going against the grain a bit.’’
DeChambeau said he’s “probably around 80 percent right now,” adding, “I can’t go all-out. I can’t do any speed-training sessions. I can’t practice for excessive hours like I have to figure stuff out. It’s also allowed me to become a little more, I guess could you say, smarter in how I practice.
“Like I’ve got to be careful with things and really be efficient and limit the amount of golf balls I can hit. Today was the first time I can just go and hit golf balls for a long period of time and just get really comfortable and dialed in, so I feel pretty nice and comfortable going into this week so far.”
He said he suffered the torn left labrum about two years ago when he started speed training, slipping on concrete.
“It’s been fine for the past two years, until I had this recent incident,” he said.
The recent incident took place in Saudi Arabia at the Saudi International.
“I was playing pingpong against Sergio [Garcia] and Joaquin Niemann and we were on some marble floors and they just wiped it,” DeChambeau said. “And me not paying attention, I Charlie Brown’d myself and went horizontal and then hit my left hip and my hand at the same time, and that really just took me out.
“That’s really when it just got to the point where I couldn’t even grip the golf club. I tried to play that week, and it was impossible. I was not even gripping with my left hand that week. I was like, ‘This is dumb, I have to go take care of my body first and get it right.’ ’’
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