20 things you didn’t know about US Open leader

7. His YouTube channel has nearly 700,000 subscribers. The most-watched video is a nine-hole match vs. Phil Mickelson, which was published about 10 months ago. It’s been viewed 2.7 million times.

8. During the final-round broadcast of the 2020 U.S. Open, analyst Paul Azinger said DeChambeau’s parents said that he understood algebra at age 6.

9. When the Rules of Golf were revised in 2019, DeChambeau was one of the first pros to embrace putting with the flagstick in. “It depends on the COR, the coefficient of restitution of the flagstick,” he told GOLF.com in November 2018, before the rule came into effect. “In U.S. Opens, I’ll take it out, and every other Tour event, when it’s fiberglass, I’ll leave it in and bounce that ball against the flagstick if I need to.” He no longer keeps the flagstick in consistently, however.

10. Speaking of putting, he experimented with side-saddle putting for a few months in 2016, which involves facing the hole and using a pendulum stroke with the putter. There was some controversy around it and the USGA eventually deemed his putter to be non-conforming.

11. At the end of the 2019 season, DeChambeau vowed to bulk up to hit the ball even farther. He went from about 195 pounds to more than 240 (and said he downed seven protein shakes a day). He’s lost weight since and now says he has a better understanding of the best diet for him.

12. At the 2024 Masters, a sign was in DeChambeau’s way on the par-5 13th hole. So he picked it up out of the ground and moved it. (Seriously.)

13. The bulking helped DeChambeau, who was already a long driver of the golf ball, get even longer. In 2021-2022, DeChambeau dabbled in World Long Drive competitions. And surprisingly enough, he did well. He finished second in one competition, and some say his presence even saved the circuit.

14. He used to always wear a Ben Hogan-inspired flat cap in tournament rounds.

15. DeChambeau went to LIV golf in 2022 for a contract reportedly worth between $100-125 million guaranteed (LIV does not disclose financials).

16. At LIV, he’s the team captain of the Crushers, which is the logo you’ll see him wear on his hat, shirts and more while on the golf course. Paul Casey, Charles Howell III and Anirban Lahiri are the other players on the Crushers roster.

17. He recently stopped mid-round to make sure a kid received an intended souvenir. At the PGA Championship last month, DeChambeau threw a ball to a young fan, but when it was snatched up by an older spectator, he sprung into action.

18. DeChambeau was involved in a lengthy feud with Brooks Koepka, which at times seemed manufactured and at other times overly aggressive and cringeworthy. At one point DeChambeau even had fans thrown out for heckling him (calling him “Brooksy,” which was essentially encouraged by Koepka). They eventually (kind of) settled their differences by facing off in an edition of The Match on Thanksgiving 2021. The match itself left much to be desired, and little has happened in the Koepka vs. DeChambeau feud since.

19. His driver loft? Six degrees.

20. He puts his golf balls is Epsom salt. We’ll let him explain.

“Essentially we float golf balls in a solution to make sure that the golf ball is not out of balance,” he said Saturday night at Pinehurst. “There was a big thing back in the day where golf balls are out of balance, and it’s just because of the manufacturing process. There’s always going to be an error, especially when it’s a sphere and there’s dimples on the edges. You can’t perfectly get it in the center. So what I’m doing is finding pretty much the out-of-balanceness of it, how much out of balance it is. Heavy slide floats to the bottom, and then we mark the top with a dot to make sure it’s always rolling over itself. It kind of acts like mud. If there’s too much weight on one side, you can put it 90 degrees to where the mud is on the right-hand side or the mud is on the left-hand side. I’m using mud as a reference for the weight over there. It’ll fly differently and fly inconsistently. For most golf balls that we get, it’s not really that big of a deal. I just try to be as precise as possible, and it’s one more step that I do to make sure my golf ball flies as straight as it possibly can fly because I’m not that great at hitting it that straight.”

Got that? OK, good.

Josh Berhow

Golf.com Editor

As GOLF.com’s managing editor, Berhow handles the day-to-day and long-term planning of one of the sport’s most-read news and service websites. He spends most of his days writing, editing, planning and wondering if he’ll ever break 80. Before joining GOLF.com in 2015, he worked at newspapers in Minnesota and Iowa. A graduate of Minnesota State University in Mankato, Minn., he resides in the Twin Cities with his wife and two kids. You can reach him at joshua_berhow@golf.com.