Every so often, I play a round of APBA Golf that is so spectacular or spectacularly bad that I just have to share it. This post is an embarrassing example of the latter.
This past weekend Bryson DeChambeau broke my record for most putts in a single round (40). This happened in the 3rd round of my 2022 Open Championship replay. The previous record, 38 putts, was held briefly by Luke List (2022) and Robert MacIntyre (2022). All three of these disastrous putting displays occurred at Birthplace (St. Andrews), where enormous greens can result in initial putts of more than 200 feet.
The day for DeChambeau got off to an inauspicious start when he 3-putted four of the first five holes. As you might surmise, he had trouble getting close to the pin on his approaches despite hitting all but one green in regulation (94%). That isn’t quite as impressive as it sounds, given the ginormous greens. The tournament GIR average is currently at 83.6%.
It looked like DeChambeau might be settling down after back-to-back 1-putts on holes 6 and 7, but he 3-putted again on holes 9 and 11. He did no worse than 2-putt the next six holes and got to the green on hole 18 with a chance to avoid infamy if he could drain a 27-footer. That would put him at 37 putts for the round, one shy of tying the record.
No such luck. He missed it by 5 feet and needed 3 more putts to get the ball in the hole. Despite his 40 putts, DeChambeau finished the round at only 5-over (77). His longest putt made was from 18 feet, and he had 83 feet of total distance for putts made. The tournament averages in my replay currently stand at 31.7 putts per round and 84.3 feet of total distance for putts made.
There are several factors that, no doubt, contributed to DeChambeau’s horrendous putting performance. First, his average initial putt distance for the round was a little over 33 feet. The longest initial distance was 146 feet, which resulted in a 3-putt. The shortest was 6 feet, which he missed by 5 feet but nevertheless sunk for a 2-putt.
Second, I played too aggressively with him in a couple of instances, because I was aware of the putting records at stake. In the one case I already mentioned, I went for it from 146 feet (instead of playing safe) in order to give him a shot at the record for longest putt made. The current record is held by Tony Finau (2022) at 110 feet–where else but at Birthplace? Another time I daringly went for it was from 27 feet (on hole 18), so that he could possibly avoid tying the record for most putts in a single round. Unfortunately, that strategy backfired as he proceeded to 4-putt.
Third, DeChambeau (2022) is not a great mid-range putter–especially when you are using the Major Tournament putting boards, as I was. They can really penalize you at times on missed putts. (More on that in a future post.)
Last but not least, my putting dice rolls sucked! Even “The Golden Bear” might have struggled with the rolls I was throwing down for DeChambeau that day. Hopefully, “The Scientist” won’t repeat this putting debacle in the next round.