Trouble follows wild DeChambeau
Bryson DeChambeau’s new muscles were no match for the wind blowing in from the English Channel and the thick thatches of rough at Royal St. George’s. Neither was his driver. DeChambeau’s bulked-up body made its links debut in the British Open on Thursday, and he paid for his long but errant drives with a 1over 71 in the first round. The 2020 U.S. Open champion was seven strokes behind Louis Oosthuizen.
“I’m living on the razor’s edge,” said DeChambeau, who erased his four birdies with five bogeys at the 7,189yard layout alongside Sandwich Bay in England.
DeChambeau didn’t mince words when someone suggested he still could contend for the claret jug if he can get it in the fairway.
“If I can hit it down the middle of the fairway, that’s great, but with the driver right now ... the driver sucks,” he said. “It’s not a good face for me and we’re still trying to figure out how to make it good on the mishits.”
His assessment irked Ben Schomin, the tour operations manager at Cobra and one of the people who designs and builds DeChambeau’s clubs how he wants them.
Schomin told Golfweek the Cobra staff is trying to build clubs for which there is no data because few others swing as hard and fast as DeChambeau.
“Everybody is bending over backwards,” Schomin said. “He knows it. It’s just really, really painful when he says something that stupid.”
Later, DeChambeau issued an apology via Instagram.
“The comment I made in my post round interview today was very unprofessional,” DeChambeau said. “My frustration and emotions over the way I drove the ball today boiled over. I sucked today, not my equipment.”
DeChambeau, who has not finished in the top 20 in the four majors he has played since winning the U.S. Open last year, doesn’t think it’s the nature of links golf that causes problems, rather the weather that accompanies it.
He recalled playing well in the 2015 Walker Cup at Royal Lytham & St. Annes on the other side of England, posting a 2-0-1 record in singles.
“The times I’ve played in the British Opens in the past, I think they’ve been a little wet and windy,” he said after Tuesday’s practice round. “I usually struggle on that in general.”
He hit just four of 14 fairways in the opening round. And rather than using his new bulk to set up shorter approaches on Thursday, he needed it just to muscle his way out of the thigh-high rough. Still, he hit 11 greens in regulation.