Sir Nick Faldo has suggested that Bryson DeChambeau is in for another nasty surprise at The Open Championship if he expects to be able to overpower Royal Birkdale over the coming days.
DeChambeau is, once again, one of the most intriguing figures teeing it up in Southport this week. The LIV Golf star is looking to make the cut in a major championship for the first time this season.
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Tom Kim, Johnny Keefer, and Michael Thorbjornsen all finished inside the top 10 at the Scottish Open
And unfortunately for DeChambeau, The Open Championship has traditionally not been an event that has played to his strengths.
Sir Nick Faldo casts doubt over Bryson DeChambeau’s chances at The Open Championship
In fairness, the 32-year-old has registered just as many top 10s at The Open as he has at both The Masters and the US Open. However, he has never contended to win the Claret Jug.
DeChambeau ended up doing an incredible job just to make the cut 12 months ago at Royal Portrush. He opened up with a 78 in Northern Ireland, before managing to capitalise as the wind died down across the rest of the week.
The signs this season suggest that DeChambeau has done little to alter his game for the majors.
And speaking on the Sky Sports Golf Podcast, Sir Nick Faldo suggested that he expects that run of missed cuts to continue at The Open.
“Unbelievable. That’s a whole part of the story how they’re superstars at LIV and then come over and can’t do it. That’s a whole other story, and then they go back to being superstars. I’d say it to his face, he has zero clue or strategy,” he said.
“He said it last year, ‘I’m going to go out and attack the links’. I was speechless. I’ve never attacked the links, you thread it. You feed it down the fairway. It’s really important. You look at humps and bumps. ‘If I send it over and feed it in, it nudges back into play’. You don’t think, ‘if I just bomb it down there, can’t see where I’m going, it’s 20 yards wide’. Yeah, good luck.
“On all this, even if you hit it fantastically, it lands on the corner of a divot you still miss the fairway. So you’ve got to think how do I get it on the short grass. It is so important. And he’ll stand up and just keep bombing it away. But you can be completely blocked out on a links.
“You hit it in the right rough, 18 is a good example, you could if you’re a nutter try and carry the bunkers down the right. They’re 310 or something, aren’t they, but you’re in the right rough to a right pin, no chance. Any hole, like the third, right rough to right pin, no chance. The best you can do is over the green, absolute best. So you have to think like that, stand back and think, work backwards.
“The hole, wherever it is, back right, I’ve got to get it somewhere near that, and you’ve got your yardage book, you know where there’s downslopes. I used to look for all the downslopes, because you don’t have to hit driver. You can twang your one iron in a day, or three wood, land it on the downslope, it scoots forward, you get an extra 30 yards of run. No need to put yourself under pressure to hit the fairway.”
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Faldo is no stranger to being critical of DeChambeau.
Faldo dismissed suggestions that he was too harsh on DeChambeau after the final round of The Masters in 2025, with the LIV Golf star tumbling down the leaderboard on Sunday at Augusta National.
The six-time major champion insisted that he is a fan of the American. However, he could not understand his strategy at times.
It is going to be fascinating to see whether DeChambeau has used his time away from tournaments to build a game that can contend at The Open.
Perhaps the biggest mistake DeChambeau could make is to assume that his final three rounds at Portrush last year showed that he had already uncovered the secret.
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