As Friday’s second round of the 154th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale came to a close, drama ensued for Bryson DeChambeau and the Royal and Ancient Club of St. Andrews (R&A).
DeChambeau, one of the most famous and controversial golfers in the world, birdied the 17th and 18th holes to close his second round and seemingly vault him into one-shot off the lead at -7. As he entered the scoring area, video surfaced of a potential penalty situation from DeChambeau’s play at the 5th hole early in his round.
From this video, a chaotic situation evolved. The R&A had questions for DeChambeau about his second shot at the 5th hole. The controversy surrounded not whether DeChambeau improved the lie of his ball, but rather, did he mat down the fescue behind his ball in order to improve the takeaway of his swing. If there was intent to improve his swing path or not is sort of irrelevant, a penalty can be assessed even if the act was done accidentally.
Before making a decision, the R&A drove DeChambeau out to the site in question on the 5th hole and from there, drama ensued. DeChambeau had a club with him and was attempting to show the R&A rules officials that the grass that got matted down was not in his intended swing path and that he was just behind the ball getting a sight line to the hole when some grass got matted down.
On the television broadcast a very animated DeChambeau could be seen raising his hands in disagreement with the officials. At one point, DeChambeau seemed to be caught on camera saying, “I won’t play tomorrow” if he was penalized. It was also reported that he was heard calling the rules officials “crooks,” before riding back to the scoring area.
After more than 30 minutes of time, the R&A finally made their decision, penalizing DeChambeau 2 strokes for the infraction. This dropped DeChambeau from -7 to -5, and he fell from second place to T5 heading into the weekend.
The R&A did release a statement on X saying the following:
The issue possibly more in question than whether or not DeChambeau broke the rule, is when and how the rule is enforced. In modern professional golf, we see players in fescue all the time walking around their ball and seemingly never get penalized. Fans have brought up a situation at the U.S. Open this year, where champion Wyndham Clark seemingly broke the same rule and was not penalized by the United States Golf Association (USGA).
Why the R&A chose to use this time to penalize a player remains to be seen. Some argue that it is political due to DeChambeau’s presence on the LIV Golf tour and YouTube. Others feel it is the R&A taking a stance on a rule that players seem to be breaking more and more often. Time will tell if the R&A says more on the topic or not.
One thing we do know is that DeChambeau will play in Saturday’s round. He took to X on Saturday evening saying:
Whether you like Bryson DeChambeau or not, Saturday afternoon when he tees it up in the third round of the Open Championship will undoubtedly be high drama for golf fans.
Mike is a founding member of Break80 Golf and a contributing golf and sports writer for Forbes with PGA Tour and LIV Golf media credentials. Mike can be reached at [email protected] for inquiries or story leads.