Patrick Smith
By Christopher Powers
After his second career PGA Tour victory at the Memorial Tournament in June, Bryson DeChambeau appeared poised for a huge summer. Instead, it began to look like we’d remember his 2017-’18 season for some inconsistent play, an epic driving range meltdown at Carnoustie and a handshake controversy.
Yet in a matter of 11 days, DeChambeau has turned those awkward situations into distant memories by claiming the first two legs of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. On Monday at the Dell Technologies Championship, DeChambeau closed out the Labor Day weekend event with a final-round 67 to win by two strokes over Justin Rose. DeChambeau has now won three times in his last nine tour starts, bringing his career-win total to four.
The guy many refer to as the scientist tried to explain what’s been the key during this impressive late-season run. “Consistency has been a big thing for me,” said DeChambeau, who has locked up the No. 1 spot in the FedEx Cup standings through to the Tour Championship. “I’ve been trying to get that week in and week out, and I was able to kind of figure something out last week on the putting green and that’s kind of progressed me to move forward in the right way.”
DeChambeau had not been a bad putter this season, just not an elite one, ranking 48th in strokes gained/putting entering the playoffs. But that’s changed these last two weeks, as he ranked fifth in that category last week at Ridgewood and sixth this week at TPC Boston. If he can continue to roll it like that, he might run through the final two legs of the playoffs as well.
“All the little stuff I do in my book, if I keep doing the numbers right and I keep executing the right shots, I can’t do much more than that. If I keep going that route, I’ll be hard to beat.”
With the win, DeChambeau becomes just the second player since the FedEx Cup’s inception to win the first two legs, the other being Vijay Singh in 2008. No player has ever won three events in the same playoffs, something DeChambeau will have two chances at accomplishing at the BMW Championship and Tour Championship.
Rose, who fired a final-round 68, now moves to third in the FedEx Cup standings. His solo second finish was his sixth inside the top eight this season. Cameron Smith finished in third, giving him a second consecutive top-three finish in the playoffs.
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