STUPID BRY
Club maker fury at Dechambeau rant
ONCE BITTEN: Bryson feels the strain and later blamed his driver which brought an angry reaction from his club manufacturers Cobra
BRYSON Dechambeau was slammed as “stupid” by his club manufacturers after blaming his driver for a frustrating first round at The Open.
The big-hitting American found just four of 14 fairways in a disappointing one-over-par 71 at Royal St George’s which left him seven shots behind leader Louis Oosthuizen.
Rory Mcilroy battled back for a level-par 70 after his hopes of ending his major drought faded early on.
But it was Dechambeau who made the headlines after insisting his equipment was at fault for
his low-key start to the 149th Championship. He said: “If I can hit it down the mlddle of the fairway, that’s great, but with the driver right now, the driver sucks.
“It’s not a good face for me. I’m living on the razor’s edge, like I’ve told people for a long time.”
The outburst left club makers Cobra seething, with tour operations manager Ben Schomin hitting back to claim the controversial star was acting like a child.
Schomin said: “Everybody is bending over backwards.
“Bryson knows it. It’s just really, really painful when he says something that stupid.
“He has never really been happy, ever. Like, it’s very rare where he’s happy. It’s like an eightyear-old that gets mad at you. They might fly off the handle and say, ‘I hate you.’ But then you go, ‘Whoa, no you don’t.’
“We know as adults that they really don’t mean that and I know that if I got him cornered right now and said, ‘What the hell did you say that for?’, he would say that he was mad.
“He didn’t really mean to say it that harshly but it’s still not cool.”
South Africa’s Oosthuizen (left) fired an impressive 64 to top the leaderboard and said: “Probably in my mind it was the perfect round I could have played.
“I didn’t make many mistakes. When I had good opportunities for birdie, I made the putts.”
He finished one shot ahead of Jordan Spieth and Brian Harman.
Andy Sullivan, Danny Willett, Justin Rose and Tommy Fleetwood lead the English charge.