One social media trend in 2024 is to film yourself each day as you try to accomplish a difficult task.
A lot of these videos are pointless. When it comes to golf, there are people out there playing every day until they make a par on every hole or become a scratch golfer or reach some level they’ve never achieved before. In most cases, the feat is so unlikely that it’s not really entertaining trying to see someone get there.
In the case of YouTube force Bryson DeChambeau, he joined this trend with a challenge he could complete. And he did complete it.
After 16 days of attempts, DeChambeau made a hole-in-one over his house.
The shot looked to be about 100 yards or so. For each day in the challenge, he got that number of shots to try. Day one was one ball, day two was two balls and so on.
On the 16th day, it finally hit.
The series had golf fans captivated
The videos were filmed as YouTube Shorts. Bryson had someone up on the roof filming down below to his practice green. On the other side of the house, Bryson had a mat and a camera showing his shot tracer.
In between him and the hole? That would be his (mostly glass) house. The green was well below the level of the house with a few rings of rock outcroppings leading to the surface.
If a 20-handicap tried this, there would be a high likelihood Bryson’s homeowners insurance would be getting involved. Shattered glass would be everywhere.
But with Bryson hitting all of the shots, there was no such worry. In fact, every shot looked almost identical, easily clearing the house. The shot dispersion was so tight that basically every attempt is within 10 feet.
On day one, he posted a 25-second clip of him hitting a shot to about two feet. More than 320,000 people have watched so far.
With each day, Bryson added a little bit of a different flavor. On day four, more than 700,000 people watched him try to make an ace while wearing flip-flops. By day nine, he was on the verge of a mental breakdown, claiming that the challenge was “getting in his head.”
By day 14, it appeared like he did make an ace—but two balls sitting right next to the hole from previous attempts seemed to block his 14th shot as it rolled toward the hole. It’s hard to say if it would have gone in for sure, but it definitely had a great chance (can someone clear the balls after each shot?). And on day 15, his last shot took a big bounce, hit the hole and then bounced out.
As of this writing more than 8 million viewers (!) have watched the challenge, and I’m sure that number will be old news in short order. These were just short clips that lasted less than a minute each. YouTube Shorts allows up to three minutes per download, but none of Bryson’s videos took that long.
When I spoke with Fat Perez for my feature on him, he mentioned that Bryson is deep into the YouTube algorithm game to maximize his audience. We’ve seen that with his wildly successful Breaking 50 series and we are seeing it again here with this challenge. Each of these video has a tantalizing headline that semi-tricks people into clicking on it, but I don’t think it’s all that necessary given how many comments are on each video (more than 1,000 comments in some cases). It’s engaging content.
So how many days was it supposed to take? Our friend and statistician Lou Stagner suggested that Bryson had about a 1 in 175 chance of making an ace on this shot.
With his 134th shot being the ace-maker, DeChambeau was due to make his ace right around day 15 or 16. Here is what Stagner posted prior to Bryson’s hole-in-one.
Keep in mind that Bryson couldn’t see the flag because he was hitting over his house—so that could have thrown the numbers off a little bit. Also, Stagner conceded that he wasn’t sure exactly how far the shot was, so it’s difficult to pinpoint precisely what the odds should have been.
Either way, it only took 134 shots. That is insanely impressive.
What was the point of this?
One comment I’ve read repeatedly on these videos is that people were highly entertained by the challenge.
“I lowkey don’t want him to make it because I enjoy the uploads,” wrote one YouTube user.
Wrote another user: “This 64-year-old Grandma is way too invested in this! Keep at it young man, you got this! I’m calling Day 19, Shot 7.”
You were a little too pessimistic, Grandma!
We’re at a point in the golf season where not a ton is happening. Some of us are waiting for the PGA Tour season to start back up in January; others won’t get invested until the Masters; many of you are skipping pro golf competition entirely in favor of YouTube golf.
But a challenge this like is easily digestible and fun to watch. It shows how much confidence these guys have by not even worrying about clearing a glass house. And you could just about lay a beach towel down and cover all the shots. The consistency is crazy.
We all want to be entertained and informed. This series has done that for me, and it looks like I’m not alone.
Did you enjoy this challenge? Let me know below in the comments.
mg
2 months ago
About time a golfer lightens up. This man is fun.