The Bryson DeChambeau Show captivates the crowds, even on a bad day. Is that fascination enough for a truce with the PGA?
By Dana O’Neil, CNN
Newtown Square, Pennsylvania (CNN) — After signing his scorecard to make official a round of golf he’d largely like to forget, Bryson DeChambeau cut through the player’s parking lot and kept going, directly to the driving range.
He plopped two buckets next to him and started swinging, stopping only to either review video of his stroke recorded on an iPhone or to have his people shoo away two cameramen who set up behind him.
When he emptied those buckets, DeChambeau cued up a few more, as if somewhere in the bottom he might find his game. It has clearly abandoned him.
DeChambeau shot a brutal 6-over 76 in the first round of the PGA Championship, putting him at a robust plus-17 over his last three major opening rounds.
So sideways did things for DeChambeau that one of his errant shots wound up on a staircase, parking itself directly beneath a tent that read, “Level Blue On the Fairway.” The ball clearly did not appreciate the irony. In a true twist, that horrible lie ended up being one of DeChambeau’s best moments; he wound up saving par.
DeChambeau splayed drives right, and putts short, long, wide and all about the tricky Aronimink greens. On the lengthy par-3 eighth, he blooped his second shot high enough to draw rain, flying it clear over the green, needing only a loop-di-loop to complete the cartoonish effect. He wound up with a double bogey.
As the round progressed, DeChambeau’s body language went from purposeful to puzzled to downright peeved, which is something of a typical descent for DeChambeau. He jammed his club into the green at one point, and on more than one occasion, he returned to the scene of whatever crime last committed – bad drive or bad putt – and took a ghost swing, as if he was both pondering what the hell just happened and dreaming of a mulligan.
On the seventh, near the end of his round, having teed off to begin the day on 10, he spent what felt like an eternity waiting for the green to clear. While Rickie Fowler and Ludvig Åberg chatted with their caddies, DeChambeau took a bunch of practice swings and chomped on a piece of beef jerky with more aggression than even chewy meat merits.
DeChambeau’s struggles come at an especially critical juncture for the two-time US Open winner and the rest of his LIV Golf exiles. Their side hustle is sputtering toward some sort of finish line, the Saudi’s Public Investment Fund having pulled the cashflow that made LIV so appealing in the first place.
DeChambeau’s contract is up at the end of this year, but that doesn’t mean he gets to head back to the PGA Tour. He was not only one of the rebels to break away; he also joined in a lawsuit alleging the PGA used a monopoly to unfairly penalize players who joined LIV.
A return will require meetings, penalties and probably a lot of kumbaya sessions. The Tour recently announced it will loosen its otherwise Draconian social media policies. DeChambeau is a proud YouTuber and has even threatened to take his ball and go play all by himself on the platform if a stalemate persists.
There remains a chasm to cross and largely what sits in the middle, between a reconciliation and a permanent divorce, is what always gets in the middle of any messy relationship: Ego. Not only does either side not want to accept blame, but also neither wants to admit they need the other.
To be fair, the PGA has hardly crumbled amid the breakaway to LIV. The 2025 season was the most-watched on CBS since 2018. Sunday viewership for top Tour events hovered around 3.1 million compared to just 480,000 for LIV.
But to spend 18 holes walking around Aronimink is to belie the notion that the PGA couldn’t use DeChambeau.
He arrived for his 8:18 a.m. tee time in a black puffy parka (to be fair, it was cool and rainy), stepping up for his opening drive to hearty applause. When he cranked the ball off the tee, the fans responded with what would become a familiar chorus for the day. On his first hole, it was “Whoa.” Later iterations would include, “Jesus!” and “Holy moly” and “Oh s**t.”
It’s a fair assessment. When DeChambeau drives the ball, it sounds different; less plink, more mean.
This is, in fact, not all of DeChambeau’s appeal but a large part of it. Sports fans can appreciate subtlety but there is a reason baseball hosts a home run derby and not a bunt fest, and basketball has a dunk contest in lieu of a layup line. People like power, and DeChambeau delivers power.
At almost every hole, as Fowler and Åberg stopped at their ball on the fairway, DeChambeau kept walking. And walking. That’s something folks can get behind, especially here, on the outskirts of Philly where, dotted between the heavily represented Villanova quarter-zips, stood a fair share of E-A-G-L-E-S and Phillies paraphernalia. A man who can Schwarbomb will always be welcome.
DeChambeau was trailed the entire round by a roving hoard (and a security guard. DeChambeau is one of eight players to have individual security for the week. The Williston police officer assigned to DeChambeau smiled when asked about his great gig for the week. “Yeah. Not bad at all. I get to follow this guy around.”).
They yelled his name after nearly every drive and cheered him as he walked the fairways. In between holes, DeChambeau regularly rewarded their faith in him, walking to one side to slap hands with people lining the ropes.
And well, they were rewarded with a true spectacle. On the 17th, DeChambeau went right again, this time his ball settling next to the grandstand. As the crowd parted to let him take his shot, fans stood above him on the railing, pointing their phones down at his head. And after figuring out exactly what to do with the ball perched on the staircase, DeChambeau took his shot while a phalanx of folks surrounded him, phone cameras in one hand, seltzers in the other.
More than watching, though, it felt like they were pulling for him. When the shots went bad, fans groaned and tried to coax him on.
“Don’t worry, Bryson! You’ve got eight more,” one man yelled after he bogeyed the 18th for an opening nine four-over 39.
As he walked down the long fairway for the 605-yard ninth, another screamed, “Give us something, Bryson!” and as he lined up his putt there, for what would be his only birdie of the day, a dad whispered to his son, “He’s 103rd right now, but if he makes this he’ll really jump.”
That proved a bit optimistic. When he signed his card, DeChambeau was tied for 120th. Only eight players ranked behind him.
As he exited the course after his merciful final birdie, DeChambeau gamely tossed a ball to a kid. “Here you go, buddy,” he said.
DeChambeau didn’t speak to the media after his round. He spent more than an hour on the driving range before heading over to the putting green for more work.
But on Tuesday, Jon Rahm, his LIV counterpart, spoke about what it’s like to be on the course among the fans.
“To realize that sometimes the truth is very different from what it is made up to be,” Rahm said of last year’s PGA Championship, when he roared into contention at Quail Hollow. “It was a realization of having such support from the crowd and playing good golf that made me realize, in a way, how I’m truly perceived by the public, as opposed to what I read sometimes.”
And therein lies the crux. Maybe the PGA doesn’t need DeChambeau and Rahm to succeed, and maybe Rahm and DeChambeau don’t want the PGA. But the paying customers kind of seem to like the idea.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s reason enough to find an amicable solution.
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