Bryson DeChambeau’s Ryder Cup partner could hinge on golf ball

As Bryson DeChambeau makes his first Ryder Cup appearance since the United States’ winning effort in 2021, he certainly brings attention like no other player in the sport.

While DeChambeau’s teammates were quick to have his back after Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee called him a “captain’s nightmare,” it’s still unclear who DeChambeau might play with in the team event.

In 2021, DeChambeau went 2-0-1, winning and tying a fourball match playing with Scottie Scheffler and sitting both foursomes sessions. In 2018, he went 0-3-0 and lost both his foursomes matches playing with Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson and didn’t play a fourball match.

Woods and Mickelson are no longer playing in the Ryder Cup and Scheffler figures to pair with good friend Sam Burns for much of the team portion of the event.

There’s really no obvious candidate to partner with DeChambeau, and Golf Channel analyst Johnson Wagner argued that part of the trouble is golf ball.

“I think he’s going to be such an awkward fit partner-wise,” Wagner said on last week’s episode of GOLF’s Subpar. “I thought it was going to be Cam Young just because they played the same ball, but I’ve heard that since Cam Young won Wyndham with the ball Bryson has been playing, that one of them has switched away from it.”

Balls

The week after Cam Young won the Wyndham Championship with a new Pro V1x Double Dot prototype golf ball, DeChambeau put the same ball in play at LIV Golf Chicago. But that experiment lasted just the one tournament and now DeChambeau is back using the same 2025 Pro V1x golf ball he has played for most of the year.

While other American players play older versions of the Pro V1x, which won 10 events on the PGA Tour this past season, DeChambeau is the only one playing the 2025 model.

Wagner claimed that might make him very difficult to find a partner in foursomes.

“I don’t know that there’s just a ball fit,” he said. “Because we all know, as particular as Bryson is, about his spin rates and his launch angle and all that stuff, he’s not going to be the kind of guy that’s going to switch and play a spinnier or a less spinny golf ball just to make it easier for his partner.”

Picking a golf ball is an interesting quirk at the Ryder Cup that only surfaces due to the unique team format of the matches. The only other time during the PGA Tour season when two partners need to select a golf ball is at the Zurich Classic team event.

Interestingly enough, Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry won that event in 2024, taking advantage of a loophole that allows players to switch balls between holes. That one-ball rule is not in effect at that event and was also dropped from the Ryder and Presidents Cup matches more than 20 years ago.

“We could either use either, but it’s foursomes — like we played a lot of foursomes growing up, obviously Ryder Cups and stuff, so you kind of figure out how to do it,” Lowry said of the switching strategy at this year’s Zurich. “You drive each other’s golf ball and then, because driving is not the issue. Especially when it gets windier, the wind is swirling, you want to have control of your ball.

“I think we figured it out last year, and we’ll do it this year.”

As for who DeChambeau will partner with for this Ryder Cup, we’ll just have to wait and see.

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