SINGAPORE PREVIEW: CRUSHERS RETURN TO SINGAPORE WHERE IT ALL STARTED TO CLICK FOR THEM
SINGAPORE – In more ways than one, LIV Golf Singapore last year was the turning point for Captain Bryson DeChambeau and his Crushers GC team.
DeChambeau came to the tournament struggling with his game. Despite the oppressive heat and humidity, he was seen hitting countless balls on the range, often in the company of his teammates Charles Howell III, Paul Casey and Anirban Lahiri.
The Texan started the tournament with a five-under 67, and even though he finished tied 19th that week, he was on a tear thereafter. He was inside the top-10s in Tulsa and DC and his remarkable run started with a runners-up finish in Valderrama. He then went on to win Greenbrier with weekend rounds of 61 and 58, and shot an 8-under to beat Lahiri in Chicago.
Singapore was also the week when the Crushers showed how dominant they can be on Sundays. From nowhere in reckoning, they shot a 20-under tally in the final round and snatched a third place. That score was seven shots better than the second-best score of 13-under.
The Sunday form has been even more remarkable this season for the reigning Team Championship winners. With all four scores counting, they are a stunning 57-under par for the final round, 14 shots better than the second-placed Smash GC. That included a 20-under in Jeddah to make up for an 11-shot deficit, and a 14-under in tough conditions in Hong Kong to overcome a seven-shot disadvantage at the start of the day.
Crushers, placed on top of the team standings, have also done well to open tournaments, when three out of four scores count. In the first round, their counting scores tallied 64-under par, two shots better than Torque.
If there is a secret sauce that’s letting Crushers cook, DeChambeau wasn’t ready to give away the recipe.
“I’ve got to keep it close quarters. I’m not going to tell everybody everything. But I will say that we’ve got a great bunch of guys over here at the Crushers. Very lucky to have picked them early on, and we’ve stuck together like glue… Gorilla Glue I would say,” said the 2020 US Open champion.
“They're just solid people. Yes, we golf great and we do really well on the golf course, but more importantly, they’re just a great bunch of guys to hang out with and they’re great family men. That’s really what I appreciate about those individuals.
“We learn a lot from each other, and that’s the cool part about what LIV provides – the ability to feed off of each other and learn and grow together.
“Our secret sauce is, I would say personally from my experience, is the camaraderie we have between us and the trust we have in each other.”
And DeChambeau was again quick to credit his teammates in helping him get over the slump in form last year.
“A lot of it has to do with the team that I have around me, Paul, Charles, Baan, even the caddies and the support group. It was a brutal time last year, and to just keep it short and sweet, I didn’t really like golf at that point in time. I was struggling to figure it out and understand what was going on,” DeChambeau revealed.
“Having the success that I’ve had and not being able to perform at the level that I know I could, it was a weird mental feeling for me. But that team just continued to push and support me to persevere on.
“It’s not how many times you get knocked down, but how many times you get back up after you get knocked down. That’s the mentality I kept taking into last year. Eventually, a couple of things clicked in my swing. The big transformation was the equipment for me… it’s been a lot more stable because of that.
"But the team was like “It’s okay, Bryson. Go get it, go figure it out, do what you need to do to figure it out”. That motivation, that team aspect is really what transformed my mindset into playing some better golf, if not some of the best golf, of my career.”
On Crushers’ Sunday heroics, DeChambeau added: “I’ve got three other players that are just super consistent. They don’t shoot crazy over par. They don't always go super deep, but they’re very consistent, and they shoot under par quite a bit.
“I’m kind of the semi-sporadic one. I can go super deep or be not too good. I think that’s kind of what having a solid team means – you get some good consistent players and then you’ve got a couple that can shoot really low. Also, with the four scores counting, it has helped us because we’re a pretty consistent team and we always seem to shoot under par and get better as the tournament progresses. We get more comfortable with the course.”
Singapore will be extremely hot and humid again this week, and even Lahiri, who grew up playing in Asia, was feeling the pinch.
Asked if he had any advice for his teammates this week, Lahiri said: “In a place like Singapore, and when it is this hot and humid, it’s all about conserving energy. That will be the key to doing well.
“A majority of the field is inevitably going to get tired by the end of 12-14 holes. Serapaong is a very strong golf course, but if you can somehow have the energy and limit any damages late in the rounds, you’d have a good chance.”