DeChambeau and Mickelson drop pounds in bid to pick up shots

Bryson DeChambeau is almost unrecognisable after ditching the bulk and Phil Mickelson has lost around two stone as American duo drop pounds in bid to pick up shots

• Bryson DeChambeau consumed in region of 6,000 calories a day to bulk up
• The American has used science to lose weight but keep his neuromuscular
• Six-time major winner Phil Mickelson has lost in the region of two stone 

Golf is a sport that increasingly feels obsessed with the very ends of a spectrum. Bigger is better. Longer is stronger.

Here at Hoylake, however, Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau continue to deliberately buck the trends.

Mickelson — Open champion at Muirfield 10 years ago — says he lost in the region of two stone ahead of this year’s golf season. Asked then what it was he had stopped eating, the 53-year-old replied pithily: ‘Food.’

By the look of the six-time major winner here on the Wirral, that regime continues.

Then there is his LIV stablemate, DeChambeau. In 2020, the American returned from golf’s Covid shutdown looking as though he had been inflated with a bicycle pump. As the 29-year-old became increasingly obsessed with strength and distance, he had consumed in the region of 6,000 calories a day to provide him with the bulk, swing speed and distance he felt he needed to reinvent the way the game was played.

American Bryson DeChambeau is almost unrecognisable after ditching the bulk

Three months after his return to the course, he won the US Open.

But now that bulk is all gone and DeChambeau is almost unrecognisable.

The one-plane swing is still uniquely his, as are the putting mechanics. He spent so long with the flag stick out on the second green on Wednesday that the group behind must have considered turning round and going home. But the muscles and the bulk are no more. It is as though someone took the stopper out and, not surprisingly for a man obsessed with physics, it has been a reverse trend that has its foundations in science.

‘I ate improperly for almost a year and a half and I was starting to feel weird,’ said DeChambeau. ‘My gut was all messed up, so I went completely healthy, got a nutritionist, did blood work, measured stuff in my gut (micro) biome. I was super-inflamed. I’ve been using this new chef, I lost 20lb in a month at the start.

‘The inflammation has just left my system and I feel a lot more at ease. I mean, I’m a lot leaner now. I feel better, my face has thinned out finally. I have lost weight but I haven’t lost speed in my neuromuscular.

Six-time major winner Phil Mickelson lost in the region of two stone ahead of the new season

‘The neurons have stayed the same, the nervous system has stayed the same and the muscle density hasn’t changed.

‘If I can get that mix of 2018 and 2020, then I’ll be difficult to beat on my day.’

It remains to be seen whether Mickelson and DeChambeau’s physical transformations will help them this week. Neither lack confidence and Mickelson has been here since Saturday, eyes hidden behind those aviator shades even in Tuesday’s pouring rain.

DeChambeau’s world ranking remains outside the top 100, some way from the fourth spot of two years ago. Mickelson has also been trending in the wrong direction. His last big win was a major, though, and that triumph at the 2021 USPGA came completely out of the blue.

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