When a golfer has previously declared that the Masters course is, in fact, a par 67 and then proceeded, two days later, to make the cut only narrowly, before being beaten by a 63-year-old Bernhard Langer, it is perhaps wise to take his statements with a handful of bunker sand.
Yet, after a sixth and a fifth-place finish in his past two escapades around Augusta, there is plenty to suggest that Bryson DeChambeau has, indeed, found the humility to navigate Dr Alister MacKenzie’s malevolent layout.
His words, as the hours ticked down to the 90th Masters, strengthen the conviction that the 32-year-old has learnt his lesson and is now ready to pass one of the great tests in his profession.
“It’s about having more patience and not being as aggressive all the time,” DeChambeau said here on Tuesday. “It’s about knowing where to be gung-ho and when not to be. That is the thing – make better decisions. And it’s about having a caddie that reins me in sometimes and you can say: ‘Bryson, you don’t need to do that – there’s just no need.’”
Good luck to Greg Bodine, known in the caddieshack as “Gee-Bo”, because DeChambeau is headstrong. He believes in his own brainpower and genius – and then some – and is prepared to fail because of his own belief. He referenced his frankly daft “67” comment from 2020 and explained to Telegraph Sport why he does not regret it. Not for himself, anyway.