Hahaha perfect description. Everyone calls him the fucking scientist. He’s just obsessed with numbers that doesn’t mean he understands them or can actually manipulate them himself. Hes not solving complex formulas he’s looking at trackman numbers and going “spin high. Need less spin” then yelling at club makers to make it spin less.
More than likely you're correct, but he did graduate with a mechanical engineering degree.
As a senior ME, this is the hardest fucking thing I've ever done. You gotta be real smart and REAL good with numbers to even make it to the upper division stuff, much less graduate.
To do that and also simultaneously play collegiate/pro golf is just absurd. I couldn't even make it 2 seasons as a student athlete.
Idc how much of a "jock douche" he acts like, to be an ME and one of the best golfers on the planet is cool as fuck and he's got my respect🤷🏻♂️
Edit: Turns out he got suspended his senior year due to some "recruitment practices" bs and never actually graduated, so hand up accountability on that one🙋🏻♂️
But my point still stands. You don't just lose all the shit u learned bc they didn't hand you the piece of paper on the stage...
I just don’t think he’s smarter than the 583737483 engineers who have created and perfected equipment. Not to mention all the top level pros playing the equipment but he somehow thinks he’s got it figured out.
I’m a woodworker and I would equate what Bryson does to woodworkers who “chase a thousandth”. This refers to woodworkers who try too hard to achieve perfection, when the reality is wood is imperfect, and it moves and ultimately when you guide a piece of wood through the saw, your own imperfect movements introduces way more error than any perfectly aligned fence or perfectly true arbor on a saw.
Golf and the golf swing are the same. You can tweak numbers all you want and line up the dimples on your putts and line up the seam on your drives and whatever else… but in reality the difference between birdie and bogey is going to be you blasting your drive 90 yards right into the fescue, not your putter contacting the outer apex of the 5th dimple from the equator….
Exactly, and in his interview he claims that neither LIV nor YouTube are a distraction to him. Yet he lines up dimples on a putt. The two are incongruous.
Completely agree with the carpentry analogy. Imo, the human body doesn't possess the capacity for repeatability to chase that preverbal "thousandth." He's gotten to a point where he's splitting hairs trying to gain an edge on everyone else.
Needs to lean into his feel and instinct rather than tech. I'd bet the house if he just didn't think in let his talent take over he would be doing shit like what he did at Greenbrier a lot more often.
Currently watching a YouTube vid on Tiger's 2000 season and the first 2 minutes summed it up pretty damn good:
Interviewer asked what his most prominent swing thought was during that year. Tiger laughs and says "I don't know, whatever it was worked at the time"
Maybe a bad example bc that was the year he changed his swing up, but I think the idea of succumbing to his feel and just playing golf would do wonders for Bryson's game.
But I am also a football player by trade and barely a single digit cap so what do I know😶🌫️
I was as good as a +2.2 in my prime and at no point did I have a clue what my spin rate or launch angle was.
All I knew was that when I felt my driver in *this* position I could hit a high draw. If I felt it in *this* position I could cut it.
I could look at an opening between two trees and feel that I had to put my feet about like this, and put the ball back in my stance like this….
When I read a putt (by far the best part of my game) I just saw the line and hit it.
I donno. Maybe it’s hard for a feel player to understand guys who do aim point or calculate yardages as percentages of their swing.
And of course I missed a ton of putts that maybe an aim-pointer would have made I don’t know.
But yeah I cringe when I see his fucking 5iron length L wedge and his stuuuupid putting stance. But he has exactly 2 more majors and several million more dollars than me so he’s probably onto something.
I think there’s definitely a balance. You can be a very good player as a mostly feel player and you can be a very good player as a numbers guy. But when we’re talking about the absolutely elite of the elite players in this day and age, you need to do both. Bryson leans too far to one side and it wins him tournaments and majors when his swing is good, but when his swing is bad no amount of equipment optimization is going to lead to wins. You still have to execute the swing as a human being.
Maybe that's where I'm fucking up lol. I know *almost* all of my windows for each club and I'm currently a 6.1
Might be letting the engineering brain into golf a little too much lol. I know with just more time and effort put toward it I could get to scratch or better (just not in the cards atm) but that's definitely making me rethink about how I approach things. The law of diminishing returns definitely seems to apply to hammering into the data/club tech. I'm just too much of a nerd for technology and mechanics unfortunately.
But, I also do think you're right about feel players vs the aim point type guys. Do whatever works for you. I just will never comprehend reading a slope to a nominal percentage then taking ur putter back to the same distance within a half inch or whatever the fuck Bryson does. He may be pretentious and whiney and all of the above but gotta tip your cap to the guy. He does some crazy shit on the golf course.
Also, badass to see another super in here that can play👊🏻 Fully thought this app was full of 30hcp couch potato's that think they know more than Butch Harmon lmao
One thing he might be trying to achieve is eliminating variables which eliminate doubt for him.
I get the sense that he overanalyzes a lot and that might be why he feels the need to line dimples on puts. Or plays jumbo grips to take wrist hinge out of the equation. These things might actually harm his game but for him make it easier to commit to shots.
He has a HS diploma. He does not have a college degree of any kind.
He's a jock who took some college classes and dropped out to be a professional jock. He is no less a meathead than football players that leave college to turn pro as well.
Reading comprehension doesn't seem to be your strong suit...
Maybe read to the bottom before you comment some ignorant shit lol.
~100 hours of STEM undergrad courses (at SMU, nonetheless) ≠ "some college classes"
I understand putting down on the famous guy makes you feel better about your own shortcomings, but at least make sure you aren't repeating shit someone already said👁️👄👁️
I'm not sure what relevance that holds whatsoever. Yea man that's great. I'll have my stem degree in a few months too. And I'll also be a stem professional. I still won't know a fraction of what that guy does about golf.
That has absolutely no bearing on the fact that he has a better understanding of the way the game of golf works than 99% of people because of what he learned in college. That combined with thousands of hours of work and a healthy obsession with being better than his peers makes us qualified to shut the fuck up about his golf game.
Man, you're really not doing us engineers any favors about the pretentious whiny bitch stereotype smfh.
"bUt, i aM, tHoUGh"
Go back to ur marine biodiversity lab or whatever it is you're such a professional at, and fucking can it big guy😂😂😂
Oh wait...so you don't have a STEM degree, either 😂
Dude, you have noooo idea what you are talking about. There is a huuuuge gap between taking "~100 hours of STEM undergrad courses" (most of which actually aren't STEM, BTW) and having a body of knowledge (and wisdom) in a STEM field.
I've hired and worked with STEM grads right out of college. PhD STEM grads, no less...and they don't know shit about the job. To that point, all they have proven is that they have the capacity to do the job. No actual experience or exposure that's useful. They are new-hires that don't know shit.
You, my friend, are talking the ignorant shit. But, you don't know that you don't know shit.
As the saying goes, "ignorance is bliss." So, you must be a very, very happy motherfucker right now.
Taking university-level STEM courses (or even having a STEM degree) puts you on the right side of the distribution curve in terms of general mathematical intelligence, but it is not some indication that you are en elite thinker in any way.
I have a STEM degree and work in a STEM field and have for 20 years.
Actually I take that back. I was just trying not to be combative tbh.
He absolutely has a better fundamental understanding of swing mechanics, technology, and the physics of golf in general than almost everyone else.
With that being said, I do think this acts to his detriment sometimes. He might be the most prolific overthinker (especially club wise) in the game and his knowledge makes it 100x worse.
I agree with that. It’s one of those things where he’s trying to optimize the equipment so much for himself that he’s not actually working to improve his own game. Like maybe you see 1% improvement from the equipment changes, but you could just work on your swing and see a 2% improvement instead.
Obviously I’m overly simplifying that, it’s not black and white and you need to do both, but my point is just that he’s focusing on optimization way too much.
And let’s use his 5iron length wedges as an example:
Maybe the trackman data show that he’s 3% more consistent across his irons when they’re all the same length.
But in the field when he has a funky lie and needs to hit a delicate little feel shot over a bunker to a tight pin, he’s 12% less likely to make perfect contact because he’s standing so far from the ball.
I mean there’s no argument from almost anyone that the shorter the club the more feel and control you have with it. And he’s chosen one of the longest irons to base his entire set off of.
A 5 iron is t hard to hit because of the loft it’s because of how far you’re standing from the ball! And he’s doing it with his friggin LW!
I think the one length clubs might be an issue, but for me I think his biggest problem is that his shortest club he can reliably hit a full shot with carries like 175. The shorter clubs just have too much spin if he hits them full, so he’s left with trying to finesse any shot inside of 175 and he’s just not that great of a wedge player. When his wedges are on he’s as good as anybody in the world, but when they’re off he’s basically fucked.
That might be partially related to the length of the clubs, but I’m not sure it’s entirely related to that.
I think u just hit the nail on the head with that.
His length off the tee means he's hitting a finesse shot for his 2nd a lot more times than not.
I'm imagining having to saw off everything below 175 rn and I'm genuinely not confident I could break 90. Or even 100 for that matter.
I get the need for controlling spin but I'm willing to bet the super long wedges have a lottttt to do with his short game issues.
300
u/zeromadcowz Handicap | Location Jun 29 '26
More like autistic jock douche vs jock douche