CHARLOTTE, N.C. – High in the sky heading home to Dallas on Friday after thinking he had missed the cut in the Wells Fargo Championship, Bryson DeChambeau got a text message from his agent that changed his itinerary.
“Hey, you’re 68th now.”
“What? No way,” DeChambeau thought to himself, realizing weekend play was actually in play. Turns out DeChambeau, who was in 90th place when he finished his second round, was moving up the leaderboard during his flight as strong winds started to batter Quail Hollow Club.
Sure enough, when the world No. 5’s three-hour flight on the NetJets private aircraft touched down, he was inside the cut.
Some 30 minutes later he realized he had made the 2-over cut on the number. And was a touch over 1,000 miles from the Queen City.
Wells Fargo Championship: Leaderboard | Photos
“Well, whoops, that was a mistake,” he said to Connor Olson, a member of his team who was on the flight.
DeChambeau made the most of the awkward predicament. He went into scramble mode but secured a new flight crew to head back to the Wells Fargo Championship for the third round. He got in one of his one-hour intense workouts. Had a nice dinner. Couple of protein shakes. Went to bed at 8 p.m. to wake up in time for his 2:45 a.m. CT eastward flight from Dallas.
The return flight landed at 6:20 a.m. local time and after a 30-minute drive to the course, he had a little more than one hour to make his 8:10 a.m. tee time.
“Put on my clothes in the locker room and headed out to the putting green,” the reigning U.S. Open Champion said. “This morning was not easy. But, you know, for whatever reason I just feel like the more weird things happen to me, the greater my resolve sometimes can be and today was a case of that. And got a little unlucky on 18, but other than that, you know, I played a great round of golf today. I’m very pleased.”
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BirdieHere comes @B_DeChambeau. He’s 4 back. pic.twitter.com/OMwSVQQgfr
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) May 8, 2021
Indeed it was a splendid round of golf – until the punishing 18th hole. DeChambeau continued his ascent up the leaderboard with five birdies through 17 holes and was within three strokes of the lead. But he ran into turbulence on the 468-yard finishing hole when his drive was left in the rough and hit his second into a greenside bunker. He needed two to get out of the bunker and made double.
His 3-under-par 68 left him 1 under through 54 holes and five shots out of the lead with the leaders yet to tee off.
Afterward, he said it was an expensive mistake to have made.
“Way too expensive,” he said. “But the thing is, I have a chance to go make a good check this week and I think that would offset it. So if I was to not come back and withdraw, lose world ranking points and all that, I had to incur the cost. It’s my fault. It did (think of not coming back), but I said there’s no way I can do that. I can’t let down Wells Fargo, I can’t let down Quail Hollow.
“Oh, yeah. I learned my lesson, for sure.”