Return to Charlotte pays off for Bryson DeChambeau; next up, robot work?

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – That cross-country snafu that Bryson DeChambeau endured this week was worth it.

DeChambeau closed with a 3-under 68 and tied for ninth place at the Wells Fargo Championship. That brought him $228,825, which should cover the cost of his private flight back to Charlotte early Saturday after he’d flown home to Dallas thinking he’d missed the cut.

“It was worth it. It no doubt was worth it,” said DeChambeau, who was also projected to move to No. 1 in the FedExCup race. “That’s what I was hoping to do this weekend when I was on that plane at 2:45 a.m. I wanted to make it worth it. I didn’t want to come out here and finish 60-whatever, close to last.”

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DeChambeau realized he’d made the cut on Friday when he landed in Dallas but had to wait until early Saturday to catch another private flight back and shot a third-round 68 despite little sleep.

“I slept 11 hours [on Saturday]. That was really nice,” he said. “But when you do that, you can get a little tired waking up and groggy. It took me a while to wake up.”

DeChambeau is scheduled to play next week’s AT&T Byron Nelson, back in Dallas, but said his first stop will be at home with his swing coach Chris Como as the two continue to solve the high-speed puzzle that his increasing swing speeds have created.

“I’ve got to work on keeping it consistent,” he said. “We’re doing some interesting research at high ball speeds. There’s some stuff that’s not lining up with what we know currently right now and it takes a robot to be able to see what’s going on.”