Hedging your bets is a pretty normal thing that we all do. But the downside of those decisions is that sometimes you’re wrong. For Bryson DeChambeau, his bet against himself on Friday after the 2nd round of the Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte resulted in a 1,870-mile odyssey.
The fifth-ranked player in the PGA shot a three-over 74 on Friday, which put him at two-over-par on the tournament. Sitting just outside the top 90 on the leaderboard, that seemed like a sure bet for him to miss the cut. So he decided to go to dinner, get in a workout, and then hop on his private jet for a flight back home to Dallas, Texas.
What DeChambeau hadn’t counted on when he left Charlotte on Friday was that the weather would cause havoc for all the golfers playing after him. While he was over 30 spots behind the cut line when he left the course, winds messed with many of the golfers ahead of him and he ended up 64th overall, just barely making the cut after all.
Bryson DeChambeau shot 74 this morning at the Wells Fargo and thought he missed the cut, so he flew back to Dallas…
…and now he has an 8:10 a.m. tee time in Charlotte to get back to pic.twitter.com/hfMCWPwZTE
— Dylan Dethier (@dylan_dethier) May 8, 2021
While making the cut was good news, that meant he had to be back in Charlotte, North Carolina to tee off at Quail Hollow on Saturday morning, which he was able to do, making it to the course just one hour before his official time. Even wilder, DeChambeau made a quick ascent up the leaderboard with five birdies in 14 holes, in what looked to be the shocking recovery. However, a double-bogey on the 18th hole dragged him back a bit to finish the day with a 68.
“It was funny,” DeChambeau told Daniel Rapaport of Golf Digest. “We did a lot of scrambling last night to get back. One of the scenarios was like turning right back around, but the crew couldn’t, you know, refuel and their hours were out. So we had to get a new crew, if anything, and it just didn’t work out.
“So we’re like, ‘Well, let’s just go in the morning.’ So I left at 2:45 on a flight and I got here at 6:20 a.m. Drove 30 minutes to the golf course, put on my clothes in the locker room, and headed out to the putting green. I did get a workout last night, though.”
Bryson had some fun explaining the situation to his fellow golfers during Saturday warmups.
Some would call @B_DeChambeau's journey to his tee time this morning a trip.
He flew home to Dallas yesterday after thinking he would miss the cut. 😳 pic.twitter.com/3bSRtUx6lv
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) May 8, 2021
While it was certainly pretty costly to get from Dallas to Charlotte like that on short notice, the payoff probably will end up making up for it. If DeChambeau can end up finishing in the top 20, he’ll walk away with at least six figures on the weekend.
