Here's why Bryson DeChambeau will putt with the pin in next year, but with one exception
The Rules of Golf have changed and you can bet Bryson DeChambeau is ready to take advantage.
A recent alteration to the Rules of Golf now allows players to keep the pin, or flagstick, in the hole while they putt. Hitting the flagstick was previously a two-stroke penalty, which was enough incentive to pull the pin anytime a player was within putting distance.
The change should chop off some time for the average round of golf now that players no longer have to deal with the flagstick if they don’t want to, but it also allows them to essentially use it as a backboard while in the hole, partially halting the momentum of a ball.
So should golfers now keep the pin in for every putt? In an interview with Golf.com, DeChambeau said he plans to leave the pin in, with one very big exception in the U.S. Open. The reason why: science.
“It depends on the COR, the coefficient of restitution of the flagstick,” he said. “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.”
So what is a “coefficient of restitution?” To use a more widely known term, it’s basically bounciness, or lack thereof.
According to DeChambeau, every PGA Tour event save the U.S. Open apparently uses fiberglass flagsticks, something that probably only Bryson DeChambeau would think about. Meanwhile, the U.S. Open reportedly uses thicker flagsticks made out of metal.
So when he’s putting toward a fiberglass flagstick, DeChambeau has determined that keeping the pin is more beneficial, while thicker metal flagsticks create a large risk of bouncing the putt away from the hole.
This follows the conclusion from golf teacher Dave Pelz that Golf.com pointed out, in which Pelz determined that golfers should “leave the flagstick in whenever the Rules allow, unless it is leaning so far toward you that the ball can’t fit.”
That all makes enough sense, though the idea of DeChambeau actually experimenting with flagstick physics wouldn’t be too unusual. This is a physics major who plays with irons that are all the same length to preserve his swing plane and has been yelled at by the USGA for using a compass to determine true hole locations. Of course he’s going to use science to figure out if he should keep a flag in a hole.
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