DeChambeau apologizes after blaming driver for UK bombing

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Bryson DeChambeau battled the wind blowing from the English Channel and the thick thatch of rough at Royal St. Georges.

And then he got into a fight with his clubmaker.

After shooting a 1 of 71 in the first round of the British Open on Thursday, the 2020 US Open champion blamed his driver for his errant tee shots, then backtracked hours later after a reprimand from an official from Cobra.

I sucked today, not my gear, DeChambeau wrote in the apology, which was posted to Instagram around 11 p.m. local time. The comment I made in my interview after today’s round was very unprofessional. My frustration and emotions over the way I drove the ball boiled over.

DeChambeau’s bloated body made its debut on the shores of Sandwich Bay, but instead of using his newfound strength to outsmart his opponents, he needed it just to make his way out of the thigh. He hit only four of 14 fairways, landed five bogeys with four birdies and finished seven strokes behind 18-hole leader Louis Oosthuizen.

If I can hit it in 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 I was still trying to figure out how to do it well on misses. I live on a razor’s edge.

Ben Schomin, the touring operations manager at Cobra, told Golfweek that it is a challenge to design clubs without data because no one is swinging as hard as DeChambeau.

Everyone bends over backwards, said Schomin, who helps design and build DeChambeaux clubs the way he wants. He knows it. It’s just really, really painful when he says something so stupid.

In his apologies, DeChambeau said the Cobra staff were like family to me, especially Ben Schomin.

I deeply regret the words I used earlier, he wrote. I am relentless in the pursuit of improvement and perfection. Part of that makes me outwardly frustrated sometimes. … My game is constant work and the control of my emotions too.

DeChambeau missed the cut in two of the three British Opens in which he participated. He said he doesn’t think it’s the nature of the golf links that’s causing the problems; it is the weather that accompanies it.

The times I’ve played at the British Opens in the past I think they’ve been a bit wet and windy, he said after his practice round, noting that he played well in the Walker Cup 2015 at Royal Lytham & St. Annes. I generally have a hard time with that in general.

But that was all before he added 40 pounds of mass and muscle so he could swing faster, hit the ball farther, and gain a huge advantage by having shorter clubs on the green, even though the ball is in raw state.

This is my first time taking my length to do links, said DeChambeau on Tuesday. The key is to drive him down the fairway this week. Either way, you have to be in the fairway. If I get … into the hay, I probably won’t have a good chance this week.

The poor start at Royal St. Georges continues a streak of finishes that have also been run since winning his only major at Winged Foot. He finished tied for 34th at the Masters in November, 46th at the Masters in April, 38th at the PGA Championship and 26th at the US Open, where he briefly had a one-stroke lead in the final round. .

He also lost the only caddy he had as a pro, Tim Tucker, which they said was a mutual decision. DeChambeau relies on his cart not only for distance traveled and green readings, but also for his mad scientist stuff like air density.

The replacement, Brian Zeigler, instructor at Dallas National, works for the first time with DeChambeau.

It certainly throws him in the deep end, said DeChambeau, who posted an Instagram video of Ziegler jumping into a pool with a bag of golf clubs.

He’s okay with that. He loves it, DeChambeau said. I would say he is still learning the ropes a bit, which is expected of all ends when you have someone new who has never really been a caddy before, but I wanted someone on the bag in whom. I could trust as much as I did with Tim, and I think that’s why he fits the place so well.

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