Bryson DeChambeau, John Daly – and 7 observations in their attempt to crack the 50

John Daly, as you may have seen in his 37-year professional career, takes his club well past parallel on the backswing. The unconventional move is, shall we say, one of his many Eccentricities.

This also seems to happen with the genesis.

“I never had short clubs,” Daly explained. “When I was 4, I got out my dad’s clubs and the first club I hit was a 4-iron. I was so weak that the club just fell down.”

“Then I saw the stick in my left eye and I thought you should come down.”

Daly spoke about Bryson DeChambeau’s latest Break 50 YouTube video, and there are some incentives to click on it. There’s DeChambeau, the now two-time U.S. Open champion, who is quirky in a very different way. There’s the concept: DeChambeau and a guest try to play from the front tees of a 50-under course. Last month, he tried it with Donald Trump.

The star of this replay was Daly, who spoke about the birth of his swing just 62 seconds in. Remarkably, after asking his fellow two-time major winner, DeChambeau tried it himself. He thinned one out and Daly laughed.

So here are six observations from the next 53 minutes. But first, you should watch the whole thing by clicking here or scrolling straight down.

2. “Let yourself be tuned to your grip, not your clubs.”

DeChambeau, as has been widely reported, plays with uniform length irons, and Daly noticed this on the range, shortly after the backswing conversation. He also noticed that DeChambeau played with larger grips, which led to this exchange:

DeChambeau said, “Great handles.”

Daly said, “Like me.”

DeChambeau said, “Yup.”

Daly said: “It’s about teaching amateurs how to play golf. Get your grip fitted, not your clubs. The smaller the grip – if you put your hands on a grip and pull it back and there’s a gap between your left arm and your right hand, you’re screwed. That means you’re not controlling the golf club. So get grips fitted. Nobody does that.”

DeChambeau said, “Nobody does that.”

Daly said, “Nobody does that. I think the bigger the grip, the better you play.”

DeChambeau said, “Yup, I agree.”

3. “Comfort and control”

Daly played barefoot throughout the round and was joined by DeChambeau on the 18th hole. After their tee shots, Daly revealed that he practices without shoes.

“Do you know why?” asked Daly. “Balance.”

DeChambeau asked, “Are you feeling better?”

Daly said, “Balance.”

DeChambeau said, “Does that give you that comfort and control?”

Daly said, “Especially 120 inches.”

4. “I wanted to be the best putter on the PGA Tour”

After 11, DeChambeau asked Daly what his best putting streak ever was.

“In 2004, when I won Torrey Pines, Vijay beat me in a playoff, Tiger beat me in a playoff,” Daly began. “But that year I dedicated myself to training because, you know, I didn’t have any injuries at that time.”

“I wanted to be the No. 1 putter on the PGA Tour – and I became that.”

DeChambeau said, “This is wild.”

Daly said: “I was just so sick of hitting the green…”

DeChambeau said, “Missing putts?”

Daly said: “They weren’t 5-foot or 4-foot putts. They were more like the 10-foot putts you have to make if you want to win. 18-foot putts. It didn’t matter if it was birdie, eagle or par. Pars are the most important because they keep the game going. A bad chip? Well, just putt.

“So I just focused on it and I think I’ve probably – I can’t even imagine how many putts I’ve made this year just from practicing.”

DeChambeau said, “That’s it. I was a terrible putter. I tried to putt head-on. I don’t know if you remember that. So I putted head-on. I did everything.”

Daly said, “Old Sam Snead.”

DeChambeau said, “Yeah, yeah. And it just didn’t work for me, but eventually I found something that worked and I’ve just been using it ever since.”

Daly raised his fist for a punch. “You’re a big winner, baby. Just like me.”

(Editor’s note: It was not entirely clear which putting statistic Daly was referring to, although he ranked fifth in the PGA Tour putting average in 2004 with a 1.736.)

5. “It’s the worst thing in life. Look at me.”

A few times during the round, DeChambeau began to calculate what he would need on the next holes to get under 50, but was then stopped by Daly.

After the first hole, Daly’s advice was: “No, no, we’ll play (hole) 2.”

After the seventh hole he thought, “Never overdo it. This is the worst thing in life. Look at me.”

6. “How many good boys do you have today?”

During the round, Daly drank Good Boy Vodka drinks printed with his name and picture, and a member of DeChambeau’s team at one point wondered:

“How many good boys do you have in mind today?”

“Oh, I started drinking at 9 this morning,” Daly said. “Um, could be the 20th.”

“I slowed down. I slowed down a little bit. Because this is an important day – I’m with my son and we’re going to hit 50.”

Also worth mentioning is the storage location of the drinks.

They were under the hood of his golf cart. A glance showed that there were about 25 of them waiting to be opened.

The score

We won’t reveal whether DeChambeau and Daly broke 50 from the par-71 tees at Old Hickory Country Club in Old Hickory, Tennessee.

You can find out by clicking here or scrolling right down. It’s also worth noting that the video had been viewed just over 700,000 times as of 7 p.m. ET, about seven hours after it was posted.

Nick Piastowski

Golf.com Publisher

Nick Piastowski is a senior editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for editing, writing and developing stories related to all things golf. And when he’s not writing about how to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native is probably playing golf, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash down his score. You can reach him about any of these topics – his stories, his game or his beers – at [email protected].