There might not be a moment more telling in Bryson DeChambeau‘s career than the sixth hole at the Arnold Palmer Invitational a few years ago. Certainly, it’s one that’s stuck in my mind. In speaking with the Crushers GC captain about his ever-changing career, aspirations and inspirations — fittingly a massive fan of Arnold Palmer himself — it seems important to start this story back in 2021.

On that particular hole, DeChambeau nearly drove the green — over a large body of water — on a par-5. In terms of shot-selection risk, it was the equivalent of skydiving. It wasn’t just that he attempted it and executed it. It was how he did it. He smashed the ball at a speed of 194 miles per hour with an apex of 115 feet and a total distance of 370 yards. Before the ball found the safety of the ground, he threw up his arms in celebration. As he walked off the tee box, he flashed a huge smile and gave his caddie a fistbump.

It was an electrifying ballstrike.

But it was also a rethinking of a hole we’d seen played thousands of times. 

He’s a master of reinvention — whether he’s playing in a LIV Golf tournament, a major championship or for his YouTube channel. He’s always changing. Which isn’t to say it’s easy.

“One hundred percent, I’m uncomfortable with change. Are you kidding me?” DeChambeau said in a conversation with FOX Sports. “I think it’s sobering as well, hopefully, to hear that. That even somebody that likes to change a lot like — I do get scared of it sometimes, because I don’t know what the future holds because of it, but I do recognize that it’s important for progress. So there’s that balance.”

To be clear, DeChambeau rejected the idea that he is a man who reinvents himself. That’s my characterization. The golfer sees it differently.

“It’s more of a progression. It’s more of an improvement,” he said. “It’s more of a pivoting towards some sort of improvement that I’ve been lacking in my life.”

The moment back in 2021 is an interesting point in time, too, because of how different DeChambeau is now: A new man. Again. 

He is, for example, preparing for LIV Golf Miami (April 4-6), sitting 10th in the individual standings with his team ranked fifth. But he’s also slimmer, seemingly happier and undeniably more popular. 

There’s a concept that mathematicians represent using a Delta (Δ). It signifies the “change” or the “difference.” DeChambeau, who majored in physics, immediately knew what I was talking about when I brought up this concept. Because I was talking about him.

It’s not just that DeChambeau himself is always changing his own game. It’s that his changes have impacted golf. For good and for bad, he brings that Delta into his game. And at times, he is that Delta in golf — pushing to move the needle in a sport known for a lack of change.

“I just try to speak with my actions and being that ‘Delta’ requires a lot of risk that’s associated to it. So my agent doesn’t like me sometimes because of that,” DeChambeau said with a laugh. “But he realizes it’s what also is, in a sense, what makes me who I am.”

His agent chimed in: “I can live with it.”

“Now you can,” DeChambeau said. And they both laughed. 

It must not have been so easy when all these changes started back in 2017. That’s when DeChambeau embraced this mentality. Back then, there were nerve-wracking moments — DeChambeau felt his skills weren’t where they needed to be. He missed 14 cuts in a row during the 2017 season on the PGA Tour. That year, DeChambeau won the John Deere Classic, but the next week, he missed the cut at the British Open.

“I had to make a change,” he said. “I couldn’t go through this up-and-down cycle of golf — this massive up-and-down cycle — when all these other pros were playing more consistently than me. They were enjoying their life. I was struggling with life, and I didn’t really know what to do. …  I was in a place where I wasn’t good. I wasn’t good enough to be as consistent as all these other players and win major championships.”

That was the first time he changed … basically everything.

He went back to the drawing board to bring more consistency to his swing. He rebuilt his drive and his short game, including his putting, in part because in college he dealt with “uncontrollable nerves.”

“I had the yips. I can verify that I did in college,” said the former Southern Methodist University standout. “Albeit, I did pretty well with it.”

Fact: he won the NCAA individual championship in 2015. Pretty well, indeed.

One change gave way to another. It’s easy, now, to say all these alterations made sense because DeChambeau has two wins in the U.S. Open (2020, 2024) and a second-place finish in the PGA Championship (2024). He also tied for sixth at the Masters. And he has two individual LIV Golf tournament wins and one team LIV Team Championship.

But it has been a process.

“I had to become egoless. I had to throw away everything that I thought I knew that was right — most of it — and go: ‘How do I become better? How do I do better?’” he said. “It’s okay to pivot. It’s okay to fail. It’s okay to learn from your mistakes. Because before that, I was pretty stubborn in my ways, and I wanted to be right in everything. And that’s ultimately where I had to say to myself, ‘You know what? You’re wrong.’”

He changed to single-length irons and wedges. He’s changed his driver-face’s roughness. This year, he changed his golf ball. Most famously, he increased his swing speed and driving distance by bulking up (including during Arnold Palmer back in 2021). That encouraged a sort of strategic and cultural revolution on the PGA Tour. That was, until he changed his diet in 2022 and lost the weight he’d gained. He and Brooks Koepka were bitter rivals — until they were best friends. DeChambeau wasn’t exactly beloved for his antics on the tour, but he has led the way for pro golfers to engage audiences on YouTube and is probably the most popular golfer on the platform. He was also one of the first elite golfers to sign with LIV. The emergence of LIV Golf has led to widespread change in pro golf.

And this past February at LIV Golf Adelaide, he drove 409 yards to make the green on the par-4 15th. Plenty has changed since 2021. But it certainly felt familiar to that shot at Arnold Palmer.

All these changes have gotten plenty of publicity.

But there’s one change that people don’t really know about: he recently hired a life coach.

“I really don’t want to go too deep into it, but I will tell you it’s important to take care of yourself. Last year, I made a change. I made a decision to do something that I’ve never really done before, which was to get some help — personal help — and that’s been a really important thing in my life, is to take care of myself. Because if I can’t take care of myself, I can’t take care of everyone around me and everybody else,” he said. 

“… I think it’s very important that people understand you’ve got to take care of yourself, and that’s coming from a place of a lot of failure on my own end. So I would say that’s one of the most important things is: take care of your mental state, your thought process, and finding your true identity and yourself.”

When it comes to emulating other golfers, there was always Tiger Woods. 

More recently, there is a different north star. 

“Arnold Palmer was a huge inspiration. And he’s somebody that changed the game with Arnie’s Army. He played the game in a unique, different, inspiring way. And I take a lot of likeness to that, because he’s, one, always been an inspiration to me. And two, he’s been that change,” DeChambeau said. “Ultimately, as I got a little bit older, I started to see, ‘Wow, there is more than just winning tournaments.’ And as time has gone on, that pivot, that Delta, that change in me personally, has been that desire to be like Arnold Palmer: be a difference maker. And it comes with risk.”

This is the common thread in DeChambeau’s career: the Delta, the change, the difference.

So what’s next?

Well, he’s already deep into two big focal points: YouTube, where he’s a trendsetter, and LIV, where he’s a team captain. Those are new skills. He said that one of the biggest motivators in his career — and to keep evolving and pivoting — is to inspire people to play golf.

The numbers show that he’s influencing the masses. He has 1.77 million subscribers on YouTube. He so far has 2.1 million views on the last video he posted just two weeks ago, per YouTube’s AI bot. Simply, DeChambeau is good at this — a rare blend of golfing talent, celebrity and personality. He also entered the space at the right moment. It might seem niche, but the YouTube golf space has a massive audience. And it’s not slowing down.

On this platform, DeChambeau transformed his public image. Once a heel (in pro wrestling terms), DeChambeau has never been more popular or more well-liked. 

Between YouTube and his LIV Golf schedule, which will bring him to nine different countries this year, he’s trying to see just how wide his reach can go.

“How can we be that ‘Delta’ that helps impact lives worldwide? … I want to reach people in India. I want to reach people in Africa. I want to reach people in the UK and China, in Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Thailand, Malaysia, you name it, anywhere and everywhere. The goal is to provide a more open-eyed experience into what golf is and what it can be.”

He added: “Golf has the ability to change people’s lives, from a perspective of teaching integrity, honor and good character, and changing people’s personality towards things in life, and creating even good proper diplomacy. And there’s so much opportunity for the game and how it can inspire and lead a young generation of humans that I think is critical and important to the success of our world. So as in regards to LIV, in regards to YouTube, those are incredible platforms for me to showcase my talents across the world.”

Prior to joining FOX Sports as an NFL reporter and columnist, Henry McKenna spent seven years covering the Patriots for USA TODAY Sports Media Group and Boston Globe Media. Follow him on Twitter at @henrycmckenna. 

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