OAKMONT, Pa. – It’s no secret that Bryson DeChambeau’s iron play has held him back in recent majors.
When he won last year’s U.S. Open at Pinehurst, DeChambeau was still in the honeymoon phase with his initial 3D-printed irons, a bulge-and-roll set built for him by Avoda Golf. But in three major starts since, DeChambeau had struggled on approach.
He lost 2.37 strokes per round at Royal Troon.
He was minus-0.7 at the Masters.
And although he was positive a few weeks ago at Quail Hollow, he was barely inside the top 50 at +0.13.
Meanwhile, DeChambeau was working with LA Golf on a new set of prototypes. These ones, named BAD V3-W, were designed to fix DeChambeau’s issue of overdrawing his irons. But the initial build wasn’t quite up to spec.
“The curvature on the face was a little different, the weight on the toe didn’t feel right for some reason, and there were some internal things that we worked on in the club that made the face more resilient when you hit it all across the face,” DeChambeau explained. “That’s ultimately why it wasn’t ready, and we had to print another version. This is version 3.”
And what makes this version different and hopefully better?
“The heel is a little bit flatter on the curvature,” DeChambeau explained. “My face obviously has some curvature on the irons. So, we’re just optimizing for the gear effect on the heel and on the toe based on the mass properties that are there. Like the heel doesn’t gear effect as much in an iron at my speeds, so hitting it on the heel, I’ve got to be a little flatter, and then the toe has a little bit more roundness on it to account for that out there, and then I moved the CG out towards the toe. I’ve got such heavy grips and heavy golf shaft that it moves the CG of the club all the way to the heel, so we try to offset that with that tungsten weight on the toe. That’s very simply what it is.”
DeChambeau debuted the BAD V3-Ws at last week’s LIV Golf Virginia event, where he tied for fourth and gained 0.3 shots per round on approach.
“They felt great,” DeChambeau said. “Is it going to be the ultimate answer to me winning? I mean, probably not. You’ve still got to putt well, drive it well and everything. But will it help me on certain shots in certain conditions? I think it might. If it doesn’t, I’ll go back to the drawing board and try to figure out why that occurred and continue to optimize.”
