AUGUSTA, Ga. — Paul Pearman is used to a nonstop party on Masters week. The 64-year-old lifelong resident of Augusta has seen it all.
Pearman, an eclectic artist whose home is more or less a museum on Lake Olmstead, is often at the center of the festivities. He knows his history, particularly when it comes to the local lore of Augusta National. An avid golfer, he’s even built a world-class putting green in his backyard, with an impressive lighting array.
It’s so bright that it acted like a Bat-Signal to attract one of the world’s best golfers.
On Friday night, Pearman returned to his home and flipped the lights on. He saw a group of guys walking across a bridge next to his house, then watched their heads snap as the green was illuminated. They turned toward the house and greeted Pearman.
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“You guys play golf?” he asked.
“Hi, I’m Bryson DeChambeau,” one of the guys replied from the dark corner of the driveway.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Jack Nicklaus,” Pearman replied.
Then his guest stepped into the light, and he realized it wasn’t just a lookalike. “Oh,” he said. “I’m not really Jack Nicklaus.”
DeChambeau, who shot a 69 on Saturday to get into the final group alongside Rory McIlroy, is just two strokes behind the Northern Irishman and in position to win his third major and first green jacket. He’s been masterful with his wedges, leading the field in strokes gained around the green. Perhaps that is partly due to the work he put in at 10 in an Augusta backyard the night before moving day.
At Pearman’s place, DeChambeau fired 72-degree wedges high into the night sky.
“It was like someone was flying over with a Goodyear Blimp and dropping golf balls onto the flags,” he said.
He picked what Pearman calls his “Liberace putter,” a giant clear block of Lucite with a head akin to a block of soap.
“Like those cheesy things that have a scorpion inside,” Pearman said. “Like you’d win if you’re employee of the month.”
Pearman hustled inside to tell his wife, Michele, to change back out of her pajamas. Get up! Bryson’s in the backyard.
“You’re full of s—,” she replied.
But he wasn’t, and Michele said she instantly fell in love with DeChambeau and how polite he was to everyone, including her beloved Rottweiler. “He was so sweet,” she said. “He introduced himself, shook my hand. And he was all over Rosie, and she was loving it.”
DeChambeau is one of golf’s most confounding figures. At tournaments, he’ll often spend his evenings banging balls once his round has ended. He’ll bring a launch monitor onto the practice green while he rolls putts. He’s got a side gig these days as a YouTuber, and he’s pretty good at it. He’ll try a lot of things that would make other pros roll their eyes.
Like working on his short game with the mix-and-match clubs that he found in the shed of a backyard golf course.
The one thing Pearman couldn’t figure out is why DeChambeau was wandering around Augusta late at night and discovering a practice spot he didn’t even knew existed just a few minutes before. He told Pearman he couldn’t sleep. “I don’t blame you,” Pearman said.
Pearman’s eccentricities have earned him his share of interesting friends. In 1989, he set a Guinness World Record, breaking legendary skater Tony Alva’s record for the longest skateboard jump (over 26 barrels). He’s a third-degree black belt and has state and national championship belts for amateur kickboxing. He creates handcrafted mosaics and belt buckles, many of which he has sold to musicians and celebrities.
Rory Sabbatini wore one of his belt buckles during a round at the Masters. Jeff Knox, the legendary Augusta National marker, was wearing one when he beat McIlroy in a 2014 round.
As a result, he knows people. And his backyard green is not your average homebuilt variety. At 71 feet by 41 feet, the kidney-shaped behemoth has its own drainage system “with nine French drains and 15 catch basins,” Pearman said. “It’s probably the biggest artificial green in town.”
He said he didn’t want to be bored in six months after building it, so he built extra undulations across the surface. That, he said, caught DeChambeau’s attention.
“This is really cool,” he told Pearman. “Usually, they’re really small and don’t have much movement.”
As an artist, Pearman said he has always appreciated DeChambeau, a player known for his boundless energy and insistence on tinkering with every part of his game and every piece of equipment in his bag. Now Pearman’s seen Bryson’s process firsthand. He watched the man who has already hit about 1,000 shots on the range this week at Augusta National spend his Friday night searching for answers in his backyard.
And it seems he might have found them there, too.
On Saturday, Pearman and his friends sat in his backyard “golf shed” and watched DeChambeau drain a 45-foot putt on No. 1 for birdie. By evening, even more gathered to watch DeChambeau birdie three of the final four holes, adding an exclamation point by draining a 48-footer on No. 18 to secure his spot in the final group — and some crucial momentum — for Sunday.
“I might cry if Bryson doesn’t win tomorrow,” Michele said.
Paul said the most difficult yard maintenance he has is killing clover in his yard. But he points out it’s filled with the four-leaf variety. Maybe, he said, there’s something to it.
“It’s just lucky out here, man,” he said. “Obviously, one lesson is all it took.”
After shining on Saturday, after his Friday night adventure, DeChambeau was asked how he avoids burnout from working on his game so much.
“Definitely the most important thing is going back and relaxing and having a fun, enjoyable night,” he said. “Hanging out with my friends and family, and just being myself. … The more I can just be myself, the longer I can go.”
