From major champion to major questions: What now for Bryson DeChambeau?
Two years ago, Bryson DeChambeau was riding the wave of one of the most electrifying wins in golf history, a late-Sunday rundown of Rory McIlroy in the U.S. Open that ended with DeChambeau screaming in exultation. He was in the midst of a run of six top-10s across eight majors, and he stood atop the golf world like a colossus.
Flash forward two years, and Pinehurst seems a long way away. DeChambeau hasn’t just fallen from the mountaintop, he’s plummeted. He hasn’t made a cut at a major this year. He declined to explore the pathway the PGA Tour offered him to return from LIV Golf, and LIV’s financial meltdown has, in turn, detonated his future-career leverage.
He’s still a YouTube golf star, but the new-media shine is already off that particular content stream. (Both The Open Championship and the Tour Championship have declined to put on “Creator Classics” to showcase YouTube golf stars, a hint at the medium’s viability outside its niche.)
Now comes The Open Championship, the major that’s bedeviled DeChambeau like no other. He’s played major links golf eight times and missed the cut three times. His best finish is T8 in 2022, and while he’s coming off a T10 finish last year, nothing in his major performance since then suggests he’s on the right path.
So what’s next for DeChambeau? A spectacular finish, like last year at The Open when he carded a Thursday 78, then rebounded for a T10 finish? Or a continuation of his long, slow slide, which would make him the only multiple-major winner under the age of 40 to miss all four cuts in a season? With DeChambeau, everything’s on the table … and the table is on a ship rocking in high seas.
Outside the ropes, the knives are out. Nick Faldo, a fellow who knows a thing or two about Open Championship success, absolutely lit up DeChambeau on a recent episode of the Sky Sports Golf podcast.
"He has — I'd say it to his face — he has zero clue of strategy,” Faldo said. “He said it last year, I think on TV, he said, 'I'm going to go out an attack the links.' Well, I've never 'attacked' a links. You thread it, don't you? You feed it down the fairway, it's really important. You look at humps and bumps and think, if I send it over and feed it, it nudges back into play. You don't think, 'Oh, I'll just bomb it down there, can't see where I'm going, it's 20 yards wide.' Oh, yeah, good luck."
That would seem to be just some these-kids-today talk from an old-timer, except that Faldo has won The Open Championship three times, and didn’t miss a cut in his first 23 appearances at the event.
Also joining the DeChambeau hunt: Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee, never shy about airing a take on any LIV Golf player, torched DeChambeau by tagging him with a stinging critique: He just doesn’t want it enough.
"It's almost like he went from chasing Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy,” Chamblee said, “to chasing (YouTube golfer) Grant Horvat. It's like he wants to outdo every YouTuber in the game of golf instead of outplay everybody in the game of golf."
Which, of course, brings us to the LIV Golf question. DeChambeau remains under contract to LIV for the remainder of the year, but with LIV’s Saudi backing evaporating, is there sufficient incentive for him to stay rather than becoming a full-time golf content creator? He’s worked closely with LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil to develop business plans and investment pitches, and he’s saying all the right things.
“I think this has a lot of opportunity. … I think that there's a lot of benefit to capital coming into this league,” he said during LIV’s most recent event in early June. “I think one of the things people don't realize is the team franchise valuations. … We get what we're doing on the top side right, I think the momentum could be endless for us.”
And as if all that wasn’t enough, DeChambeau is apparently approaching one of the most important tournaments of the year with entirely new clubs. GolfWRX spotted a new set of irons in his bag at Royal Birkdale this week, which appear to be the latest iteration of his 3D-printed clubs that he first rolled out at the Masters this year. Nothing like major season at a tricky venue for a club switch, right?
DeChambeau didn’t have a full media session prior to the Open Championship, and has declined several opportunities to speak at other majors this year. If he’s going to let his clubs do the talking, now would be the time.
DeChambeau tees off at 4:58 a.m. Eastern on Thursday in a grouping with Scheffler and Tyrrell Hatton. And about 36 or so hours later, we’ll know whether he’s back on the right path or continuing on the very wrong one.
