Stars dominant in first half of 2021 PGA Tour campaign

As the PGA Tour enters the second phase of its season, Bryson DeCheambeau keeps eyes on the main prize

By Chris Cox/PGA Tour

Bryson DeChambeau celebrates making his putt on the 18th green to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational at the Bay Hill in Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images).

There was Rory McIlroy, still only two years removed from the first Players' Championship title of his career, packing up his belongings on a Friday.

It was surely a sight to behold. The Northern Irishman, who stood tall here at TPC Sawgrass in Florida in 2019 with a late Sunday surge, gathering his personal items two days early after missing the cut by a whopping 10 strokes.

But what turned an already surreal moment into a truly revealing one was still to come.

“I'd be lying if I said it wasn't anything to do with what Bryson did at the US Open,” McIlroy would later say of his rival Bryson DeChambeau.

“I think a lot of people saw that and were like, whoa, if this is the way they're going to set golf courses up in the future, it helps. It really helps.’”

McIlroy watched from afar as DeChambeau’s newfound physique powered him to a six-shot triumph at Winged Foot in September, the second event of a packed schedule featuring 50 events, including six major championships.

It was evident to the 31-year-old McIlroy that DeChambeau—who gained more than 20 pounds during the three-month hiatus in 2020—had found a way to take advantage of the system.

And McIlroy wanted in.

“Probably the swing issues and where it all stems from, probably like October last year, doing a little bit of speed training, started getting sucked into that stuff, swing got flat, long, and too rotational,” McIlroy said.

“Obviously I added some speed and am hitting the ball longer, but what that did to my swing as a whole probably wasn't a good thing, so I'm sort of fighting to get back out of that. That's what I'm frustrated with.'”

DeChambeau’s physique became the biggest singular story on the PGA Tour in 2020, and this season is shaping up to be much of the same.

As the 2020-21 campaign officially reached the halfway point in late March, the 27-year-old was still very much in control of the narrative, with wins at the US Open and Arnold Palmer Invitational as well as a near-miss at The Players’ Championship.

As the Florida swing concluded, DeChambeau was alone atop the FedExCup standings and dominating the statistics' sheet. Halfway through the season, the DeChambeau led the tour in driving distance (320.8), scoring average (69.432), strokes gained: tee-to-green (2.099) and strokes gained: total (2.533).

“You know, I appreciate it, first off,” DeChambeau said of McIlroy’s comments.

“I wasn't trying to influence anybody. I was just trying to play my own game and hit it as far as I possibly could.

``And I knew there was going to be an affect. I didn't know what it would be or who would be affected by it, but again, golf is a weird game. This journey that I'm on is not taken lightly. I've tried to figure out a bunch of different variables that you have to in order to hit it straight, hitting it really far.

“I knew that there would be some people that would try and some people it would potentially not work for them and some people it may help them,” DeChambeau continued.

“But I do appreciate Rory's comments, it's kind of a sentiment almost and something that keeps me going every day.”

While DeChambeau’s dominance—and his peers’ race to catch him—may continue to drive headlines, they are far from the only story on the PGA Tour this year garnering newspaper ink.

Much of that, particularly of late, has been reserved for Jordan Spieth, who has begun to show signs of escaping from a three-year slump that he believes may have started with a hand injury that he failed to initially diagnose.

“I probably fought changes that would have helped me turn things in the right direction a little bit sooner,” Spieth said.

Spieth said his grip strength began to fade in 2018, which coincided with his well-documented decline. The former world No 1 and FedExCup champion last won at the 2017 Open Championship in England and has not made qualified for the season-ending Tour Championship since the same year.

“As the year went on my grip got weaker, the club face got more open and then I needed to flip at impact and so it just required more timing,” Spieth recalled.

Jordan Spieth at The Genesis Invitational at the Riviera Country Club in California last month. (Photo credit: Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images).

“From somebody who already has kind of a weaker grip to start with, you don't really have much wiggle room on that side of the things.”

Those struggles are slowly becoming distant memory for Spieth, however, who entered the third World Golf Championships event of the season with top-15 finishes in four of his previous six starts. The surge helped him rise 40 spots in the world golf rankings, which in turn helped land him in Austin, Texas, for the match play event.

“Missing the World Golf Championship (at The Concession), via not qualifying for it, I didn't like that at all,” Spieth said.

“It lit a fire that I hope to progress forward and not miss many more. But this one being in Texas and being home and obviously having actually maybe an easier chance to qualify for this one than that one, I definitely wanted to keep playing well to make sure that was a possibility.”

The only thing missing from Spieth’s 2021 resumé, of course, is a victory. In fact, he’s one of the few superstars on tour who hasn’t yet found the winner’s circle this season, as the FedExCup points list at the halfway point is littered with future hall of famers.

Justin Thomas, buoyed by his come-from-behind win at The Players’ Championship, enters the second-half trailing DeChambeau by just 58 points in the race for the tour’s ultimate prize. Dustin Johnson sits at No 5 following his triumph at the November US Masters, while Brooks Koepka isn’t far behind at No 9, thanks in part to his win at the Phoenix Open.

Other winners thus far include Viktor Hovland, Patrick Reed, Daniel Berger and the sensational Collin Morikawa, who added to his growing list of early accomplishments with his dominant victory at the WGC-Workday Championship at The Concession.

These steady performances have been especially welcome considering the absence of one Tiger Woods, as the 45-year-old has unsurprisingly been perhaps the biggest non-competition storyline this season because of his horrific single-car accident in late February.

Woods, who was already on hiatus following a fifth back procedure, suffered extensive damage to both the upper and lower portions of the tibia and fibula as well as extensive damage to his ankle, all suffered when his vehicle rolled over.

Woods said in a statement on March 16: “Happy to report that I am back home and continuing my recovery. I am so grateful for the outpouring of support and encouragement that I have received over the past few weeks.

“Thank you to the incredible surgeons, doctors, nurses and staff at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. You have all taken such great care of me and I cannot thank you enough.”

It may be some time before fans are able to watch the 82-time PGA Tour winner tee it up again, but rest assured he is doing well.

“He was in great spirits,” Thomas said of his conversation with Woods following his victory at The Players’.

“My dad said he was texting him the whole day, giving him grief about what was going on, so it was good to see he was watching.”