Gerry Dulac: Bryson DeChambeau brings the party, and the PGA Tour needs him back

They especially love it when he gets all cranked up and fidgety on the tee and uncorks one of those monster drives as he did in the first round — 379 yards at the 486-yard eighth hole.

Or when he punctuated his final-round 64 at the PGA championship at Valhalla with a birdie putt that included a pirouette off his left foot while thrusting his arms in the air. DeChambeau did not win the PGA, he came up one stroke shy of Xander Schauffele, but he put on a show that energized the galleries and reminded everyone what a talent he is.

“God, we miss Bryson,” former major champion Padraig Harrington said at the tournament.

A year earlier, he was booed on the first tee at Oak Hill when he was introduced in his pairing with Brooks Koepka. Not anymore.

DeChambeau has more than 600,000 YouTube subscribers and more than a million Instagram followers. But he is out of view on the LIV Tour, where most of the golf world can’t see him.

That’s what has made his play in the majors this year all the more special.

“For the fans it's great, it's super entertaining,” DeChambeau said. “I don't want to be on the wrong side of it, albeit it's going to happen a few times out here. I've just got to stay patient and focus on giving yourself the best chance, best next chance to make a putt or get it up-and-down, whatever it is.

“And then when something nice happens, yeah, showing the fans a little fun, giving them a wave or pulling the hat off or tipping the cap or saying thank you, whatever it is, maybe a fist bump here or there. Just doing something to excite the crowd a bit. It's always fun.”

DeChambeau is even drawing inspiration this week from Payne Stewart, who won here in 1998 and whose legend is bronzed in a statue that sits outside the Pinehurst resort’s clubhouse. Like Stewart, DeChambeau is an SMU alum, and said he went there soon as he discovered that Stewart did, too.

He is honoring Stewart, who died in a plane crash five months after his U.S. Open victory, by attaching the Ben Hogan-style cap he used to wear to the side of his golf bag.

“When I went to SMU, in the athletic department on the wall I saw a mural of him, and I'm like, ‘Oh, my gosh, he went to SMU?’” DeChambeau said. “They're like, ‘Yeah, didn't you know?’ I was like, ‘No, I didn't know he went here.’ That was probably the moment I decided to go to SMU, when I saw that mural on the wall.”

The PGA Tour needs Bryson DeChambeau back.

____