To no surprise, Bryson DeChambeau exhausted every resource in trying to determine what caused his mysterious illness at the Masters.
Following a disappointing performance, DeChambeau said he underwent a series of MRI exams, visited an inner-ear doctor and had ultrasounds done on his heart and neck to find out why he had complained of dizziness and a “really odd,” “dull” and “numb” feeling at Augusta National, where the reigning U.S. Open champion tied for 34th.
“The one thing I will tell you is that I’ve done a lot of brain training with Neuropeak, and the frontal lobe of my brain was working really, really hard, and that’s kind of what gave me some weird symptoms, like crazy overworking,” he said Friday while speaking to reporters in advance of next month’s Saudi International on the European Tour.
“So as I started to relax my brain a little bit and just get into a more comfortable situation and got on a really good sleep schedule routine, a lot of those symptoms went away. They come back every once in a while, but as I do a lot of breathing, it goes away, and that’s really what I’m focused on trying to do.”
When asked whether the pressure of Masters week – and knowing he was a tournament headliner – contributed to his health issues, DeChambeau said it played a role.
“There was that, the stress of the tournament, the spotlight, the whole thing – yeah, it all took a toll,” he said. “I don’t think it was that specific thing, but it was a combination of a few things that escalated my brain, overworking and, ultimately, just giving out, unfortunately.”
Another area of concern, DeChambeau said, is his “gut health.” Because of the massive changes he’s made to his body over the past year and a half, he’s had inflammation in his stomach. He tried to combat the condition with probiotics but “started to feel really weird after that.”
“When you’re trying to change anything, you’re always going to have something on the back-end happen that may or may not be good for you,” he said. “It wasn’t really great for me and my stomach, but I’m working out how to figure out how to optimize it the best I possibly can so that I can have the best health moving forward and we’re doing it the right way.
“I guess you could say it was a dirty weight gain bulk. I’ve started to lean out over the past month, still trying to have strength gains while maintaining good muscle mass, good muscle size and strength and power. It’s going to come through eating well, eating right and feeding my body with the right sources to make sure this head stuff doesn’t ever come back.”