The Bryson DeChambeau fiasco at The Open Championship on Friday has certainly divided opinion.
DeChambeau caused serious uproar at The Open last week when he was penalized two strokes for breaking the rules and subsequently threatened to withdraw from the championship.
The LIV Golf star was deemed to have improved the playing conditions around his ball in the rough on the fifth hole at Royal Birkdale on Friday by trampling down some of the long grass behind his ball.
And it is interesting to get Rick Shiels‘ take on the Bryson DeChambeau situation at The Open, given the Englishman’s affiliation with LIV Golf.
DeChambeau’s two-stroke penalty at The Open on Friday shocked the golfing world, and it was his reaction to the rules infraction that caused the most controversy.
The LIV golfer allegedly suggested that he would pull out of the championship and even threatened to call Donald Trump to ask him to speak with the R&A.
None of that materialized in the end, as DeChambeau turned up at Royal Birkdale on Saturday for his third round.
Rick Shiels’ opinion on Bryson DeChambeau’s rules violation at The Open
The American could have completely changed the narrative surrounding him at Birkdale if he had taken the two-stroke penalty with any kind of decency.
However, his childlike reaction saw him receive even more criticism from golf fans, his fellow pros and pundits around the world.
Now Rick Shiels has offered his take while speaking on his show on YouTube.
“My take on it, I don’t think for one second that he intended to break the rules at all,“ the YouTube star insisted.
“But he knows the rules really well. A lot of pros use the rules to their advantage, which potentially he was trying to do.
“But he knows the rules really well. A lot of pros use the rules to their advantage, which potentially he was trying to do.
“I think he should have accepted the two shot penalty if that is what has been awarded to him. At the end of the day nobody is bigger than the game of golf or The Open. No one individual golfer is.
“He should have said as much as he didn’t like it, ‘it’s a two shot penalty, I will move on and use it as fuel’.
“But for one second I do not believe that he cheated.“
Rick Shiels has absolutely nailed that.
The rules infraction was clear and obvious.
However, it could easily be argued that DeChambeau didn’t intentionally clear the path to the back of his ball.
Bryson DeChambeau has plenty of support after Open fiasco
Many of his fellow pros have leapt to his defence in that aspect as well, including the likes of Xander Schauffele, Sam Burns and Scottie Scheffler.
Scheffler said: “I think that opens up a greater discussion that — all I can really say is I think maybe we need to be a little bit more strict in the way that we are policing guys, but it’s a little bit of a balance because you’ve got certain guys like a Bryson who every shot he hits is going to be shown on TV.
“When you have camera angles that are far away, things can look different than they do when you’re right there.
“We’ve done a good job of — I don’t know, I hate saying stuff out here because I don’t want anything to get taken out of context. All I’ll say is Bryson, I’ve known him for a long time, and he’s a lot of things, but he’s definitely not a cheater.“
Hopefully DeChambeau will learn from the incident at The Open and be more careful in future.
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