Bryson DeChambeau is the perfect villain in Rory McIlroy’s game

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Video games are designed to be conquered. There is a start and a finish, with limited lives in between. You collect goods, face mini-challenges and claim incremental victories, each of which prepare you for what’s coming: the final boss.

Who is, in this case, Bryson DeChambeau.

This Masters should feel like a respawn from last year’s U.S. Open at Pinehurst, not only because Rory McIlroy is the role player at the center of the golf universe, but because its most powerful antagonist awaits him, just like he did last June.

McIlroy has been stone-faced all week. DeChambeau has been Stone Cold Steve Austin, staring down a set of Rory fans on Saturday, reminding them I’m still here.

McIlroy is carefully guiding himself around Augusta National, hands at 10 and 2. DeChambeau has one hand on the shifting gear, the other tossing high-fives out the window.

McIlroy headed home Saturday night, intent on ignoring his phone. DeChambeau heard that and told the press, “I don’t have that problem.” He’ll be spending some time on Instagram. (We’re guessing his follower count is on the rise.)

It feels wrong to call this wonderful showman the antagonist, especially as DeChambeau hit five bags of range balls Saturday night with a massive, golden full moon as his flood light. He’s such a perfect villain that — especially with a two-shot deficit — he still feels like an underdog. A healthy portion of the patrons would label him the lead actor, but McIlroy has been fighting this fight for much longer. Trying to win a Masters for his entire life, trying to win a major for a decade, and trying to win the moral battle of PGA Tour vs. LIV for at least three years. 

DeChambeau defies all that. He gladly left the PGA Tour for a mega-million handout. It was his victory in 2020 that led McIlroy to chase distance, throwing his swing out of whack. DeChambeau called this tempest of a golf course a manageable par-67 that year, and most of us believed him, in the same way you might align with an outlaw because, damnit, gunslingers are absorbing.

But because of those two strokes between them, and because of the weight of Grand Slam immortality, Sunday is about McIlroy first, DeChambeau second. Pinehurst was that way, too. McIlroy had the two-shot lead through 67 holes, playing a group ahead of DeChambeau, ready to post a score and see if he could top it.

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The beauty of that battle resided in Pinehurst’s layout, which features a 16th hole running along the 17th, just a few specs of sand between then. The 18th green sits atop a hill, allowing for a look backward, down to the tee. The geography of that course had McIlroy watching a lot of DeChambeau that day, constantly peering backward to gauge how he should play forward. McIlroy admitted to thinking DeChambeau might bogey the 72nd hole, based on his hooked tee shot into a waste area. DeChambeau made a world-class par. Thanks to a camera in the scoring room, you could see McIlroy throwing controllers at the walls in his head. He skidded out of the parking lot that night without saying a word, and spent parts of the next couple weeks walking anonymously through a tourist boardwalk of New York City, thinking … 

How do I win this game?

You turn the system back on and try again. But that doesn’t make the final boss any weaker. If anything, we’ve seen the opposite. DeChambeau has spent the last nine months reenforcing himself as the other modern global star that everyone always seems to be reaching for. When he walked from the 18th green to scoring on Saturday night, it was DeChambeau, not McIlroy, who had four wide-smiling, green-jacketed club members waiting to dap him up. 

They won’t admit it publicly, but the 300 or so members will each make up their minds on Sunday afternoon, if they haven’t decided already. Thanks in part to a made-for-TV match in December— and, well, everything else in the sport — golf fans have been forced to decide if they’re Team Rory or Team Bryson. If they love watching greatness on historic golf courses or if they’d rather flip on the most recent episode of Breaking 50. 

They were in each other’s proximity for most of the third round, close enough to wave but not enough to toss a knowing wink to agree that, it’s happening again. Their play took care of that, elevating them two clear of everyone else. Bryson guys speed-walked away from Rory. Rory fans antagonized Bryson.

They may be friendly, but they are not friends. McIlroy congratulated DeChambeau for his Pinehurst triumph at the Open Championship a month later, but the two have barely talked about it otherwise. “We’ve been fine,” DeChambeau admitted Saturday night, but that’s about it. There was also the driving-range dig that DeChambeau made at McIlroy’s expense in the lead up to their made-for-TV battle in December. It went viral, like a lot of things DeChambeau does. And you probably shrugged if you saw it because, to the victor go the spoils…of reminding your opponent how you crushed their soul.

If Sunday plays out similarly, there will be a lot more reminders, in the shade of Pantone 342. Thankfully, it will be different than Pinehurst in one guaranteed way: there will be no looking back or flexing for the group ahead. It’s hero vs. villain in the final group together. From the same side of the tee box and similar parts of the fairway. They’ve reached the final level.

Or it’s back to the start of another one.