Bryson DeChambeau, one of the leading candidates to win his first Masters this week after back-to-back victories on the LIV Tour, is again making noise at a major with his golf clubs. And as usual, it’s before he’s even struck a shot.
DeChambeau indicated during his media session on Tuesday that he’s now building his own clubs. Because of course he is. Or at least he is in the process of constructing a set of irons and a driver. Maybe. His answers lacked a little specificity.
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DeChambeau told the media that “it’s my own personal clubs I’m building.” As most who’ve followed DeChambeau can recite, he is the only professional of significance to use irons and wedges that are all the same length (generally the equivalent of a typical 7-iron). He’s played single-length irons since he was a teenager and has made the case that they make for a more efficient and consistent swing.
But that hasn’t stopped him from tinkering with the idea, even on the eve of major championships.
“[In] South Africa I was trying wedges, so I was going quite a bit down a rabbit hole there and figured a couple cool things out,” he said. “Hopefully it helps this week. Then, I am working on irons, building irons, building a driver, so we’ll see where it goes, we’ll see where it takes me. All I could say now is, if I don’t put them in the bag, it’s my fault now.”
He’s won on the LIV Tour twice this year with a set of Avoda “Bryson DeChambeau Prototype” irons, some Bettinardi HLX 6.0 wedges and a Ping Glide 4.0 60-degree wedge, as well as the Krank Formula Fire driver, 3-wood and 5-wood that he has used for some time.
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How exactly DeChambeau is “building” his own clubs wasn’t clear. While he certainly has enough money to commission any kind of club construction he might want, or to employ any kind of club designer he might be able to find, his unique set makeup requires unusual head weights that aren’t commonly found. Most companies in trying to retrofit existing clubs to DeChambeau’s specs have to perform some unusual weighting tricks. He has recently used a version of Ping’s i230 irons that in some cases required nearly 50 grams of extra weight in the head.
Golf gear gymnastics is not new territory for DeChambeau. At the Masters two years ago, the two-time U.S. Open champion put custom made Avoda irons in the bag. The irons, which at the time were not a retail product, feature a curved face with varying degrees of bulge through the set in an effort to improve dispersion based on his higher swing speed. The clubs had to be approved by the USGA for conformance to the groove rules in the days leading up to the Masters that year. DeChambeau went on to win the U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2 later that year with that “one of one” set, and the company went on to introduce versions of those irons in 2025.
Then, at the U.S. Open last year, DeChambeau debuted new irons from a different company, L.A. Golf. At the time, he was the company’s flagship player, suggesting on Golf Digest’s The Loop podcast that “we’re going to change the game. We’re going to ruffle some feathers, I’d say, in a good way. We’re going to innovate beyond what’s known so far.”
But in a disagreement with ownership, DeChambeau broke from L.A. Golf in February after being part of the company since 2018 as it looked to expand to a full line of clubs. The two sides parted ways after DeChambeau sought to acquire 51 percent of company, up from his two percent stake.
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Again, on Tuesday at the Masters, DeChambeau was cryptic about whether he’s been forging and grinding his own designs or weighting up another manufacturers’ current heads. And nothing clear about the prototype driver he’s been developing, either. Based on images from the practice round, he still appears to be gaming the Krank driver and Avoda irons. It seems unlikely that anything will change by Thursday. But this is the same guy who once shot a YouTube video of him trying to hit the founder and chief content creator of his production company with a stinger iron shot, so anything is possible. Stay tuned.
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