Bryson DeChambeau caused some serious controversy at The Open Championship.
DeChambeau was deemed to have violated rule 8.1a during his second round at The Open Championship last week, and he wasn’t happy about it in the slightest.
The 32-year-old LIV Golf star’s actions in the aftermath of the ruling were far more unacceptable than the actual rules violation itself.
Bryson DeChambeau refused to accept his two-shot penalty without protest at The Open.
DeChambeau threatened to pull out of the championship and told the R&A that he wanted to speak with Donald Trump in the hope that the US President would be able to sway the ruling.
And as a result, the 32-year-old American received huge criticism from fans, golf analysts, and indeed, his fellow players.
Rory McIlroy was the biggest name to go in on the American.
McIlroy said DeChambeau fully deserved the penalty he received at The Open, and even suggested that he is not fond of the LIV Golf star.
Bryson DeChambeau should’ve learned from Rory McIlroy after Open controversy
McIlroy completed the career Grand Slam at The Masters in 2025.
However, he made things extremely difficult for himself after missing a four or five foot putt on his final hole to win outright.
After missing that putt, the Northern Irishman had to face Justin Rose in a sudden-death playoff at Augusta National.
McIlroy must have felt that he had blown the best chance he was ever going to get to win The Masters.
However, his caddie, Harry Diamond, told him that he would have taken a playoff at the start of the week, if it was offered to him, and his mindset immediately switched to a positive one.
Now Trey Wingo has explained why DeChambeau and his caddie should have been thinking along similar lines at The Open, when speaking on his Straight Facts Homie Podcast.
“I heard his agent say, ‘I’m not 100% sure he’s going to play tomorrow’,“ Wingo said.
“I’m like, ‘are you kidding me, respectfully, are you kidding me’?
“There is nobody in front of you, even with that two stroke penalty, who has won a major championship, and you’re only four strokes off the lead.
“Why are you, like, letting this ruin that situation for you?
“And it was still bothering him on Saturday when he made a couple of wild gestures on the golf course, and then after the round, apparently he wanted to try to get his scorecard back from the officials.
“They were like, ‘that’s not how this works, we’re not surrendering that to you so you can make some content out of it’.
“That’s not how any of this goes.
“And I thought back, and people are gonna hate this comparison, but after Rory in 2025 at the Masters, missed, what, a four-footer, five-footer, that would have won him the career Grand Slam.
“His caddie, his best friend, looked at him and said, ‘we would have signed up for this on Monday’.
“I wish someone had tried harder, and maybe they did, but I don’t think they tried hard enough, to say to Bryson, ‘you have always played terribly at The Open Championship, up until the last three rounds at Royal Portrush last year, and the first two rounds here. You’re playing great. Wouldn’t you have signed up for this’?“
‘Performative’ Bryson DeChambeau slammed by Trey Wingo
The straight-shooting media personality took aim at DeChambeau’s ‘performative’ nature, and criticized him for focusing on the wrong thing after he received the two-shot penalty at Royal Birkdale.
“Having missed a cut at the first three majors of the year, you’re in the position you want to be in,“ Wingo said.
“Focus on that, instead of all the other stuff, which, quite frankly, at some point to me, got performative.
“It got performative, because he’s a performer. You know, that’s what he does, as well as play golf on his YouTube channel.
“That’s how he brings people in. He performs.
“That bothered me as a competitor, man. Figure out what’s ahead of you, not what’s behind you.“
That is absolutely spot on from Trey Wingo.
Bryson DeChambeau may have felt like he was hard done by after receiving a two-stroke penalty, but the way he reacted in the aftermath was not only embarrassingly childlike, but it made his task of winning The Open even more difficult.
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