Bryson DeChambeau jokingly singled out a reporter who queried his ‘salty balls’ technique for ensuring his golf balls are balanced. DeChambeau has previously revealed that he placed his balls in saltwater before each round.
The 30-year-old adopts a meticulous approach to his preparation for major tournaments. That could ultimately prove fruitful as the American has a US Open triumph in his sights.
DeChambeau leads by three shots heading into the final round at Pinehurst. Following a third-round 67 at Pinehurst No.2, he singled out a reporter for asking about his ball-balancing methods.
"Thanks for the salty balls question. I appreciate that. Yeah, I put my golf balls in Epsom salt. I'm lucky enough that Connor, my manager, does that now. I don't have to do it. But essentially we float golf balls in a solution to make sure that the golf ball is not out of balance.
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"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 centre.
"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."
DeChambeau will hope to win the second major championship of his career at the US Open. He is now the favourite heading into the final round at Pinehurst, leading the likes of Patrick Cantlay, Matthieu Pavon and Rory McIlroy.
