The Masters: Golf coach Chris Como getting Bryson DeChambeau ready for a run
By Mark Carman
Golf coach Chris Como has his clients ready for The Masters while helping grow the game.
155 days. If it feels like The Masters is coming around quicker than usual, well, it is. 2020 champion Dustin Johnson has barely had enough time to get comfortable in his green jacket, but now its on to the title defense.
Meanwhile, swing coach Chris Como is busy getting his prized pupils like Bryson DeChambeau ready to take another shot at his first Masters title. Como is expecting a much different tournament than last November.
“I’ve heard its firm and fast out there right now so I think its going to be a very different look scores will probably be much different, but the prep is not that different just trying to figure out what the course is going to allow for the week,” Como told FanSided.
Como is also working with Jason Day and coached Tiger Woods for many years. Golf’s elite have gravitated to Como and his ability to connect with different personalities.
“Its not just a matter of imposing what you want to see onto a person, but really working with how they process information,” Como said. “Sometimes you’re planting seeds for things down the road you’re playing off their emotional states. Just being intuitive to where you can pick your spots.”
Chris Como also worked with the great Tiger Woods
Taking idiosyncrasies out of the mix, Como answered a question about who the most talented golfer he has worked with like you would expect.
“You gotta go with Tiger right, I mean he’s the best ever and just the way he was so connected to his body and how he could feel certain things it was remarkable,” Como said. “Bryson is incredibly talented, works extremely hard talented in different ways than Tiger.”
The Masters tends to favor big hitters like DeChambeau who averages a PGA tour best 337 yards off the tee. Some want the game to be tinkered with to combat the big hitters of today.
“There’s tons of ramification to trying to pull things back the games hard enough as it is,” Como said. “At the end of the day, I think golf is really fun to watch right now some of the best entertainment we’ve had in the game in a long long time. I would see where this takes us in the current trajectory cause golf is in a great place right now.”
Golf is at its peak popularity since Woods exploded onto the scene. Credit the pandemic and some creativity to 60 million more people playing at least round of golf in 2020 than in 2019 according to the National Golf Foundation. Como was coaching Woods during the “Tiger Boom” and remembers a sport taking Woods for granted.
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“In general, I think we were kinda arrogant as a community with the Tiger boom we just sort of assumed that all those golfers that were showing interest because of Tiger would stay in the game,” Como said.
That arrogance has now given way to many indoor facilities being built where golfers can spend less time chasing their lost ball and getting in more swings wetting the appetite to head to the course.
“It used to be that a round of golf was 18-holes take up the whole day potentially but there are so many different ways to enjoy the game now that could appeal to different people that fit their time constraints for their life.”
Chris Como talked to FanSided from the newly redesigned Golf Galaxy in Arlington, Texas.