Rocket Mortgage Classic Recap: Bryson Brings It

Bryson DeChambeau's plan to try and ace each and every hole appears to be working.

Thanks to a Sunday 65 -- the best round of the day -- DeChambeau claimed victory at the Rocket Mortgage Classic by three strokes. Still, neither the 360-yard drives nor the nearly 200-mph swing speeds -- or even the number of protein shakes he took in on a daily basis -- was his most impressive feat in Detroit. It was the composure he displayed Sunday, a day after bizarrely losing it on a cameraman.

DeChambeau no doubt saw that he was hammered all over social media on Saturday night and Sunday morning for getting in the face of the cameraman, who had the audacity to keep the camera focused on DeChambeau just a little too long for his liking. Yet DeChambeau didn't let that, or Matthew Wolff's three-shot overnight lead, faze him in the least.

The Tour's ever-growing strongman birdied Sunday's first hole at Detroit Golf Club while Wolff bogeyed it, and it was all gravy for DeChambeau after that. It extended a remarkable run for someone who has become the most-talked-about golfer on the planet. DeChambeau has now finished in the top eight in seven straight tournaments, and has moved up to No. 7 in the world rankings – right on the heels of his digital nemesis, Brooks Koepka.

DeChambeau has finished T3-T8-T6-1 since golf's restart. He is a combined 69-under par – 20 strokes better than the next best player (Viktor Hovland) during that stretch. For those of you who couldn't hear me with my mask on, that's TWENTY SHOTS BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE.

Of course, since golf returned, the big story has been, well, just how big DeChambeau has gotten, having added some 20 pounds of muscle since the March shutdown. He leads the Tour in driving distance. At the Rocket Mortgage, he averaged 350 yards off the tee also led the field in Strokes Gained: Putting. When he can do that, it's just not a fair fight.

Back to DeChambeau's demeanor. He has lost it on the course multiple times -- on more than one continent, in fact -- and it didn't end well. He curiously picked an online fight with Koepka and had it thrown back in his six-pack or, er, his face. In no way are we condoning Saturday's incident, but his ability to put it behind him so quickly and all but run away with the tournament was remarkable.

The 26-year-old DeChambeau now has six career PGA Tour wins (seven worldwide) and has at least one in four consecutive seasons.

He clearly has all the physical tools to literally alter the way golf is played. Perhaps the only thing standing in his way is what's between his ears. On Sunday, that was no impediment at all.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Matthew Wolff
Let's not lose sight that of all the young guys on the PGA Tour, Wolff is the youngest. At 21, he's younger than even Sahith Theegala and Peter Kuest, both of whom turned pro only last week. But it also was a surprise that Wolff carried a three-stroke lead into Sunday, because he had done next to nothing since winning the 3M Open a year ago. In fact, his runner-up at Detroit was his first top-10 since the win. He has shown incredible prowess off the tee but little else. At Detroit, he was 10th in the field in SG tee to green and fifth in putting, so much better than his season-long rankings. Losing on Sunday may in fact help Wolff more in the long run. In the short term, we can't be certain he's turned a corner and will now compete regularly – Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa have been far more accomplished and consistent. But with the runner-up, Wolff is now at least in the same Zip code in the world rankings as those two, up to a career-best 59th. He was 108th coming in.

Maverick McNealy
Keeping it on the young side, McNealy turned in the second-best showing of his career, a tie for eighth. It's been an impressive debut season for the 24-year-old – and we say debut even though he first appeared six years ago as an 18-year-old at the U.S. Open. McNealy has made 14-of-17 cuts with five top-25s. He was third in the Detroit field in putting and that is his strength right now. He's ranked 14th on Tour in SG putting. That said, he missed a four-footer on 18 that would've netted him a career-best T4.

Kevin Kisner
It has not been a great season for the Bulldog. Kisner had been doing a lot of things poorly, but it was especially the putter that was killing him. He was ranked 90th on Tour coming in. At Detroit, Kisner ranked 11th in SG putting and, voila, he finished solo third.

Webb Simpson
Simpson tied for eighth, and he did so without his golden putter – he ranked 40th in the field. Still, it was enough for him to sneak past Justin Thomas and Brooks Koepka to equal his career-best ranking at No. 4. Separately, we'd like to put to rest once and for all that Simpson is a short hitter. He was the only golfer to reach the green in two on the 630-yard 4th hole on Saturday, using consecutive 308-yard shots to get there (two putts for a kick-in birdie).

Adam Hadwin
When we looked at Hadwin's numbers last week – top-30 in both GIR and SG putting -- it was curious why he hadn't had better results. He opened the season with a pair of top-5s but hadn't had so much as a top-25 since October. Well now he another top-5. Thanks to an eagle-birdie finish, Hadwin zoomed up the leaderboard to tie for fourth. Hadwin was second in the field in GIR and fourth in scrambling. 

Danny Willett, Matt Wallace and Tom Lewis
A trio of Englishman who were struggling big-time turned in by far their best showings on Tour this season. Willett had been 0-for-3 in cuts coming out of the break; he tied for fourth. Lewis had made only 1-of-6 cuts all season and tied for 12th. Wallace also tied for 12th, keeping him inside the top-50 in the world rankings for now. He had missed 2-of-3 cuts since the restart. Oh, and a fourth Englishman was in the mix, but Tyrrell Hatton finishing in the top-5 is hardly news these days.

Mark Hubbard
It was not the best Sunday for Hubbard, who began the day with a real chance to win but tumbled to T12. No youngster at 31, he's amid a great comeback season after being off the Tour for two years. Hubbard now has three top-10s and six top-25s, and he's made 14-of-18 cuts. He was only $7,200 on DraftKings.

Viktor Hovland
Hovland tied for 12th to register a fourth straight top-25 since golf came back. And get this: Unlike DeChambeau, Hovland will make it five weeks in a row this week at the Workday Charity Open (and presumably will make it six straight at the Memorial, which would impress even Sungjae Im). Hovland's big shortcoming right now is around the green, and he has admitted as much. That's what we were keeping an eye on at the Rocket Mortgage. Well, Hovland tied for 15th in scrambling. If he could've done better than 68th in SG putting and had even a halfway decent Sunday, he'd have had himself a top-10.

Lucas Glover
Other than DeChambeau and Hovland, no one has played better across all four tournaments than Glover. He turned in a fourth straight top-25. His worst score so far in 16 rounds is 71, and his worst Sunday round has been 67. After a horrible start to the season, Glover is zooming up the GIR rankings, now No. 37. The downside is, Glover appears to have a ceiling because of his putting. He ranked 58th in the Detroit field and is 142nd on the season. He'll be taking a break this week, but his game surely aligns nicely for the Memorial.

Kristoffer Ventura
There's another Oklahoma State Cowboy on Tour other than Wolff and Hovland (and Rickie Fowler). Ventura is a few years older at 25, but they were all teammates in Stillwater. He has struggled in this, his rookie season, making only 5-of-13 cuts. He tied for 21st at Detroit. This was his first event of the restart, probably because he just couldn't get into those stacked fields. Regardless, he is ranked fifth on Tour in putting, which means we probably aren't done hearing about Ventura.

Tony Finau
Finau had been heading in the wrong direction coming out of the restart: T23-T33-MC. And that was before staring at an 18-footer for birdie on his final hole on Friday, needing to sink it to avoid another MC. Lo and behold, the 129th-ranked putter on Tour sank it. He couldn't do much on the weekend, continuing a poor restart with a tie for 53rd.

Sungjae Im
Im is another guy in a bit of slump. He tied for 10th at Colonial but since then has gone MC-T58-T53. Naturally, he is in the field for the Workday, but he didn't have much success last year at the Memorial, tying for 57th.

Patrick Reed
Reed missed the cut for the second time in three weeks and it would have been three in a row if not for a Friday escape act at the Travelers Championship. This is very rare for Reed. He's missed three cuts in 12 starts, and over the past five years, he's averaged about three over a full season.

Jason Day
Give Day credit. He has played four events in a row without any WDs or MRIs. Of course, he has not made any cash, either, but these are good baby steps. Day missed the cut for the third time in those four weeks. Impressively, he will play a fifth straight week at the Workday Charity Open and, presumably, then a sixth at the Memorial.

J.T. Poston
At $8,7000 on DraftKings, was there really any other possible result for Poston but a missed cut? He's a pretty good young golfer, approaching the top-50 in the world rankings. But he's probably not quite ready for Prime Time just yet.

Sahith Theegala and Peter Kuest
Week 2 together for recent college alums, and once again they both missed the cut. Theegala missed by three strokes, one better than Kuest. They are not in the Workday field, so it's not known when we'll see them again.

Will Gordon
Gordon may have celebrated till Tuesday after his tie for third at the Travelers qualified him for special temporary membership. With such a momentous event for the 23-year-old, he predictably missed the cut at the Rocket Mortgage. Now, his job is to avoid the highs and lows from week to week as best as possible -- no easy task for a young golfer.

Kevin Na
We don't want to get on a guy for withdrawing if he's hurt. But strictly from a fantasy standpoint, we simply can't count on Na right now. He's the new Jason Day. Na, seemingly hurt, missed the cut at Colonial, then dropped out of the Heritage, then tied for fifth at the Travelers, then WDed from Detroit.

Daniel Summerhays
Summerhays two weeks ago played what was supposed to be his final tournament before retiring. He closed with a 62 only to lose the Korn Ferry event in a playoff. Afterward, he said, 'It's nice to go out on my own terms." Well, he felt so good about his game, he entered the event in Colorado and, of course, missed the cut. We're guessing he retires now, but who knows?