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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA | For a man who has an answer – or at least a scientific theory – for most things, Bryson DeChambeau didn’t have an answer for what kept him from winning the Players Championship on Sunday.
The final scoreboard showed DeChambeau finished two strokes behind winner Justin Thomas but what the numbers couldn’t fully explain was how big a struggle it was for the man chasing his second win in eight days in Florida.
“Golf,” DeChambeau said, shrugging his big shoulders after shooting a final-round 71 that looked and felt like work.
“That’s the game. I’m OK with it. Still smiling after.”
The confounding twist, DeChambeau said, was how he felt more comfortable Sunday on a golf course that doesn’t seem to fit his overpowering style than he felt in winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill a week earlier.
It became apparent early that DeChambeau wasn’t sharp. Starting the final round two behind third-round leader Lee Westwood, DeChambeau failed to birdie the relatively easy par-5 second hole then ruined his day with a choppy, scrambling double bogey at the par-4 fourth hole.
Asked to explain his tee shot on the short, watery hole, DeChambeau was at a loss. Hitting a hybrid off the tee, the ball went just 143 yards before slamming into a bank and ending in a penalty area, leaving him to play his third from what would be a member tee.
“I was trying to hit more of a low bullet and just kind of caught the heel, a little high on the thing,” DeChambeau said. “It wasn’t really a top, it was more like a thin ball that just had no spin on it and just knuckled. If there was a top there, it would have been down on the ground.
“But it’s one of those things that just didn’t have it all today. I was proud of the way I fought, proud of the way I persevered.”
DeChambeau’s third shot rocketed far to the right of green, in the tangle of pine straw, trees and grassy bushes. The shot sounded funny and when DeChambeau looked at his 4-iron after hitting it, he discovered the club had cracked.
He rallied late, making an eagle at the par-5 16th to get within two of Thomas, who was playing ahead of him. But that was as far as DeChambeau could push the issue.
For the player who has seemed to dominate the game at times and certainly own the attention of fans, it was a flat finish but he left with some encouragement.
“I can play on golf courses that don’t really suit me,” DeChambeau said. “That’s a big lesson.”
Ron Green Jr.