FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Through just a few days at Bethpage, this Ryder Cup’s two biggest heavyweights are acting a lot more like team-sport athletes than the individuals we know them to be.
Bryson DeChambeau and Rory McIlroy — members of golf’s only real rivalry — were both given the chance to comment on what we can all see so clearly.
They both passed. (Unfortunately.)
“I promised Luke I would only talk about the European team today,” McIlroy said. “I’m going to stick to it.”
“I think rivalries are good for the game of golf,” DeChambeau offered. “I have the ultimate respect for Rory as a player. It’s going to be fun to go up against him this week, whether it’s against him directly or through other players. I think it going to be a fun challenge this week.”
“Would I love to go up against him? Yeah. It would be a lot of fun. Is it going to happen? It’s not likely.”
He’s not wrong, but it’s much too late for platitudes like these, now on the eve of three days of the sport’s most intense matches. The table-setting of narratives was complete a long time ago, and by these boys in particular. It’s only right that Bethpage offers us Bryson vs. Rory, Vol. III or IV or V or whatever it is at this point.
There was Pinehurst and the U.S. Open, where McIlroy screeched out of the parking lot in defeat. (DeChambeau would have loved a congratulatory handshake.) There was their final round, last-off pairing at this year’s Masters, when McIlroy triumphed and barely said anything to DeChambeau in the process.
There was last December’s ill-fated “Showdown,” where they faced off against each other in a team match alongside Scottie Scheffler and Brooks Koepka. McIlroy’s team won the golf and the cryptocurrency purse, but DeChambeau may have won the week with a viral quote from a pre-match range session.
“I’d really like to go up against Bryson,” McIlroy had said to a crowd on a driving range, mic’d up and good-natured. “To try and get him back for what he did to me at the U.S. Open.”
From one stall away, DeChambeau interjected: “Well to be fair, you kind of did it to yourself.”
McIlroy was left a bit speechless, forced to accept that DeChambeau had a higher chip stack at the pro golf table. Their fortunes flipped in April, and they haven’t really faced off since. At least on the course.
In July, at the “Happy Gilmore 2” premiere, DeChambeau — also speaking into a mic and good-natured — said he would “chirp” in McIlroy’s ear at this year’s Ryder Cup. In August, when McIlroy was prompted with that quote by a skilled interviewer from The Guardian, he didn’t hold back.
“I think the only way he gets attention is by mentioning other people,” McIlroy said. “That is basically what I think of that. To get attention he will mention me or Scottie [Scheffler] or others.”
Luckily, another skilled interviewer, this time from the Golf Channel, offered the quote back to DeChambeau earlier this week.
“There’s a rivalry between every one of us golfers,” DeChambeau said. “Is it heightened with Rory? Sure. You can make it that way.”
We absolutely can make it that way. But they have made it that way, too! The planning and orchestration of that “Showdown” wasn’t exactly a smooth process between both parties. McIlroy will be doing another made-for-TV golf match this December, and DeChambeau is not invited. That might be less personal than it is a product of the unending war between DeChambeau’s home tour, LIV Golf, and McIlroy’s, the PGA Tour. But both players fervently believe in a different future of the sport, and aren’t afraid to talk about it.
Back to this week, though, where the infamously difficult Bethpage Black has been nipped and tucked to suit both of them, the two greatest drivers on the planet. Perhaps to no surprise, when DeChambeau was trying to max out his driver ball-speed on the range Tuesday afternoon, it was McIlroy’s name atop the leaderboard with a 335-yard carry. A few swings later, it was DeChambeau on top, 361 yards.
Away from the range, that matters most on the 1st tee, no? Where the green is situated 360 yards away. They may be the only two players in the field who can drive that green. We can only hope they somehow get a chance to do it against each other over the next three days.
