PINEHURST, N.C. — Under different circumstances, Bryson DeChambeau might have been modeling a newly fitted green jacket at Pinehurst on Monday, basking in the glow of what would have been one of the best days of his life.

Instead, he had to settle for reliving the shot of his life, and what was unquestionably one of the best days of his life.

Last June, DeChambeau outdueled Rory McIlroy on No. 2 to win the U.S. Open, blasting out of a fairway bunker short of the 18th green to set up the winning par putt. Sunday, he was in the final pairing with McIlroy, taking the lead for a flash before fading, merely a spectator on McIlroy’s roller-coaster back nine that ended with a cathartic playoff win over Justin Rose.

Less than 24 hours after finishing tied for fifth at Augusta, Ga., DeChambeau was back at a happier place, 10 months later, to assist in the commemoration of his bunker shot for posterity as Pinehurst and the USGA installed a plaque in the grass next to the bunker to mark the spot.

“It’s so ironic, too,” an emotional DeChambeau said. “I just lost the Masters yesterday. In golf and life, you lose more than you win. It’s important to celebrate the moments you do win.”

That’s what Monday was about: the celebration of a shot that will live in history. Not that DeChambeau needs any reminders.

“Every day,” DeChambeau said. “Every day, it’s cool to wake up and remember I did that.”

Whatever level a single shot has to reach to be commemorated like this there’s no doubt DeChambeau’s shot reached it. But it’s one thing to be memorable. It’s another for the USGA to actually take action, as it did with a plaque to honor Tiger Woods’ putt on 18 to force a playoff at Torrey Pines in 2008.

There’s been a marker at the spot where Ben Hogan hit his 1-iron on the 18th at Merion for decades; Pinehurst and the USGA decided this needed the same recognition.

“What are those moments? What are those shots?” said John Bodenhamer, the USGA’s chief championships officer. “I think it just needs to have a unique and profound impact. And it really needs to be about winning. We had Francisco Molinari make a hole-in-one on 9. There were a lot of cool things that happened here that week.

“But what (DeChambeau) did, in the moment, with all that was here, and the history and what was on the line? There just aren’t that many of those, that propel you to victory and they come at a pivotal time. You know it when you see it.”

And now, every member, golf-tripper, tourist and hacker who attempts to replicate DeChambeau’s famous shot will know where to drop the ball.

Even DeChambeau had trouble replicating it Monday. The 55-degree wedge that he used during the U.S. Open was in the gloved hands of a USGA museum curator, having been donated in February. He changed shoes on the edge of the bunker, dropped a ball and blasted a shot greenward, through a tunnel of a few hundred locals who had showed up to witness the occasion, ringing the bunker and green.

“That’s my first shot of the day, out of the bunker,” DeChambeau said. “I’ll take it.”

DeChambeau hit two more, each closer than the last, but neither as close as when it mattered. It was firmer then, DeChambeau said, and not into the wind that was blowing from over the clubhouse Monday. “Behind and from the left?” DeChambeau asked his caddie, Gregory Bodine. “It was kind of a blur, to be honest,” Bodine said.

That whole Sunday was a blur, as DeChambeau and Rory McIlroy both dropped shots over the final four holes, until DeChambeau scrambled from under the TV tower where he hit his drive on 18 into the bunker. Then he hit The Shot and made the putt — more or less — that he watched McIlroy miss while standing in the rough, and a celebration ensued that, technically, was extended through Monday.

“That third shot’s what really did it for me,” DeChambeau said. “That putt wasn’t incredibly easy. It was a little right to left, right-center putt. But I still had to make it — after seeing Rory miss, too. The green’s firm, baked out, you still have to execute a good putt. But that third shot was the shot.”

It was the dramatic finish Pinehurst deserved, after two U.S. Opens that failed to live up to the first, when Stewart outdueled Phil Mickelson and celebrated his winning putt with a limb-flailing first pump for the ages now captured in bronze behind the green. The ensuing victories of Michael Campbell and Martin Kaymer were, bluntly, forgettable.

DeChambeau’s win, on the other hand, was as unforgettable as his shot, now a permanent fixture of a course with no shortage of history of its own.

____

©2025 The News & Observer. Visit at newsobserver.com. Distributed at Tribune Content Agency, LLC.