DeChambeau: I'm not even close to being the slowest on the PGA Tour

With the PGA Tour having handed out just a single one-shot penalty in 24 years the name most people would have a few quid on Bryson DeChambeau being the second to lose a shot.

He might be a pro of only three years, a five-time champion on the PGA Tour, a winner on the European Tour, a Ryder Cup player and soon-to-be Presidents Cup member, and all by the time that he’s just 26, but the first thing that we all associate with the man they call The Scientist is that he’s slow.

And, at times, painfully slow.

He may well walk faster than most other players but the Twitterati are onto him and he’s in the slow-play camp along with JB Holmes, Kevin Na, Ben Crane, Jason Day et al.

Aside from all the social media kick-ins that DeChambeau has been on the end of, Brooks Koepka has put the boot in calling it “embarrassing” while Justin Thomas, who played with DeChambeau at Liberty National when the bad stuff really hit the fan, added: “I like Bryson as a person, but he’s a slow golfer. I hate saying this because I don’t want Bryson to think I’m throwing him under the bus but it’s just unfortunate where the pace of play is in the game at the moment.”

No wonder there has been such an uproar on slow play this week. RT @JRoseWXYZ: Dude. Putt already. @b_dechambeau pic.twitter.com/sMx4mle9T9

— Tim Bourret (@TimBourret) August 14, 2019

The following day in New York the 26-year-old defended himself by pointing out that he was being unfairly singled out and that was was a load of “complete and utter you-know-what”.

And everyone went off him even more.

Then the PGA Tour announced that they would be taking a deeper dive into the pace of play and their ShotLink technology would help to provide the players with a pace-of-play report over how long they took for certain shots.

Now nobody likes technology and data more than DeChambeau and, following his 64 on day two of the Safeway Open, he defended himself again against the same-old accusations of being a slow coach.

“There’s data out there now that shows that I am not the slowest player at all by any means,” he said. “The PGA Tour has it, I’ve seen it.

“I don’t know if I can disclose any of it. I’m not going to, unfortunately, but I’m definitely not in the top 10 per cent. I’m not close to that. That’s from ShotLink data, we have that. So I can say that, I know I can say that without a shadow of a doubt.”

So there you have it. Why would DeChambeau be telling us porkies? More importantly who on earth are all these other players who are even slower? Maybe someone will be brave enough to speak out.

We did our own experiment to see how the European Tour players will fare when the tour’s new slow-play regulations come into force from next year. The results are fascinating, so keep your eyes on NationalClubGolfer.com…