The man known for bulking up and blasting drives has spent an inordinate amount of time on the driving range of The Grange Golf Club hitting golf balls with enough vigour to make a younger man’s back hurt in sympathy.

However, those swings and practice sessions that have left the 2020 US Open champion’s hands raw and calloused weren’t about a further pursuit of distance, rather a return to the golfer he was before he became a major champion and a lightning rod for attention, good and bad.

“I’m looking for my 2018 golf swing. When I won four times and had a chance to win seven,” DeChambeau exclusively told Golf Australia magazine after a seven-under-par round of 65 in Adelaide that leaves him 14 shots adrift of runaway leader Talor Gooch.

Why would DeChambeau attempt to go back to before he was a major winner and attracted a rumoured US$125 million dollars to play the Saudi financed LIV Golf circuit?

According to him, that is when he was a better player, before a distance search that he says by necessity rather than design.

“It’s a bit frustrating for me, I went on a hitting it far journey,” DeChambeau said. “I’ve been in a tough spot for a few years with my hand, and a lot of other stuff and it’s a grind. But I am getting back there.

Bryson closing down yet another range in his search for his old game. PHOTO: Jimmy Emanuel.

“I feel like today was a good stepping stone, I still feel like there was drives out there where I hit some big hooks. Still trying to figure that out, but hopefully I’ll get it figured out today.”

Taking those steps toward a game not built on hitting driver as far, or as often, as possible isn’t necessarily being helped by the boisterous crowds in Australia.

Following the American on Saturday, there was one thing the fans wanted from a strategically conservative DeChambeau taking irons from a number of tees and carefully plotting his way around.

“Especially with the fans yelling to hit driver, even on par-3s. It is difficult,” he said of trying to rein in his aggressive approach to the game.

That tempered approach has also involved balancing an enjoyment of the party atmosphere and sell out crowds in Adelaide with taking his business seriously. That balance saw him take a fan’s phone alongside the 13th fairway to take a selfie on his way to making one of six Saturday birdies and a closing eagle.

“I do, I want to have fun, I want to give them the best experience possible, but I am grinding so hard to play the golf I know I can play, because I don’t feel like I’ve played at all up to my standard for the past two, three years,” DeChambeau said.

"I’m looking for my 2018 golf swing … It’s a bit frustrating for me, I went on a hitting it far journey. I’ve been in a tough spot for a few years with my hand, and a lot of other stuff and it’s a grind. But I am getting back there." - Bryson DeChambeau.

“Winged Foot (2020 US Open) obviously played well, Arnold Palmer played well, won those events, but man I should be winning a lot more than that. I know I am that good, and I know I have the ability, it’s just going through a retooling. I am starting pretty much from scratch again, with speed obviously.”

Retooling his game has involved attempting to find what made DeChambeau such a successful player, as well as just what went wrong when going down a path of distance that many believed would change the professional game forever.

“I had to figure out what I did in 2018 that made me so repeatable. There was a level of control that I had through the impact zone that few people have had and that’s why I won so many times and played so well.

“Then I lost it in late 2018, I lost it about the Ryder Cup time and could never get it back.

“I went on a distance journey because of it, and I wanted to hit is as far as I can and maybe, breaking it down, exposing what was the problem that I was missing.”

Part of “working it out” the 29-year-old believes will require “eventually going to have pay someone to build a driver” to withstand his 185mph ball speeds and strikes across the clubface.

But in the meantime, it means finding his game in the dirt of The Grange Golf Club.

And that is exactly where DeChambeau could be found at the end of the day Saturday when the sun was all but gone.

That crowd of people yelling for drivers were right there too.

This time perhaps a little over served, a fact that didn’t stop the man once termed golf’s ‘Mad Scientist’ now perhaps closer to a frustrated genius playing into their hands. DeChambeau hitting the shots the vocal crowd called for.

And of course, eventually doing what is apparently the week’s “in vogue” thing by partaking in a shoey.

For DeChambeau, there is clearly a fine line between the grind for performance and gratification of performing.