The post Inside Bryson DeChambeau’s prototype TaylorMade Qi4D driver at the U.S. Open | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

The post Inside Bryson DeChambeau’s prototype TaylorMade Qi4D driver at the U.S. Open | Tour Report appeared first on Golf.

Welcome to Fully Equipped’s weekly Tour equipment report. Every Friday of PGA Tour weeks (plus other times, if news warrants), GOLF equipment editor Jack Hirsh runs you through some of the biggest news surrounding golf clubs on Tour, including changes, tweaks and launches. This week, he’s joined by Director of Equipment Johnny Wunder.

Bryson DeChambeau arrived at the U.S. Open with a prototype TaylorMade driver that was a long time coming.

The company and the two-time U.S. Open winner stole the gear story of the week at Shinnecock early Monday morning when two new Qi4D Prototype 200+ drivers showed up on the USGA conforming list.

Those prototypes turned out to be for none other than DeChambeau himself, who had been working with TaylorMade’s team for six months on the design. It’s the next chapter in DeChambeau’s long quest to create the perfect equipment to optimize for his extremely high ball speeds.

But this wasn’t something that TaylorMade started working on just because DeChambeau approached them earlier this year. Developing a product for extreme 200+ mph ball speeds was something TaylorMade was already working on, said Brian Bazzel, TaylorMade’s VP of product creation.

“Independent of the conversations we were having with Bryson, we were going down this path of prototyping drivers to, you know, as we always try to stay ahead of things for players of that immense speed that we’re seeing emerge in golf,” Bazzel told GOLF. “The stars aligned a bit as we were going down this path of exploration on sort of a concept car prototype, and then he started inquiring, getting a little bit more serious.”

As more and more golfers hit the professional game with extreme speeds like DeChambeau, TaylorMade jumped at the opportunity to work with the two-time major winner on a solution.

“How often would somebody have the opportunity to test such an asset of one of the best players in the world, major winner, who is very, very detailed in terms of what he thinks he needs?” said TaylorMade Tour Rep Adrian Rietveld, who worked with DeChambeau to fit him into the prototype. “As an equipment company, we’ve been speaking to Bryson for years about stuff, ideas. We’d be in conversations or we’d meet with him. He’s been talking about a product that he feels would work for high-speed players as there is a wave of this coming.”

DeChambeau’s prototype uses the same core construction as the standard Qi4D models, including a carbon face, carbon sole plate, the titanium front piece and collar.

But where things start to differ is in the nearly completely smooth sole plate, which makes the driver more aerodynamic. The driver also has a more “toe-shaped” profile, Bazzel said, which again improves the driver’s aerodynamic performance. And the CG is extremely forward to help mitigate spin at extreme speeds. Unlike the standard Qi4D, which has four adjustable weights, the two prototype versions have only three or two. DeChambeau is using “Version 2” without a rear weight port.

TaylorMade Qi4D Custom Driver

SHAPED FOR SPEED The re-engineered head profile increases ball speed thanks to improved aerodynamics developed through advanced simulations. FACE FOR DISTANCE 60x Carbon Twist Face™ is a technological cornerstone that provides weight savings, incredible ball speed and more consistency vs. a titanium face. ADJUSTABLE PERFORMANCE 4° loft sleeve can be used to adjust loft, lie and face angle for optimized flight. TOUR PROVEN TECHNOLOGIES New and improved cut-through Speed Pocket™ protects ball speed and reduces spin on low-face strikes. Advanced CAD modeling creates a design with a clean and powerful sound, a foundation of TaylorMade driver performance. Multi-Material Construction allows engineers to strategically place mass in areas of the head where it maximizes performance, speed, and stability.

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ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA TOUR Superstore, TaylorMade

The biggest adjustment was to TaylorMade’s Twist Face bulge-and-roll profile, which has exaggerated characteristics to help players with 130+ mph swing speeds, like DeChambeau, keep the ball in play. Extreme bulge-and-roll profiles are nothing new for DeChambeau. That was core to the design of his previous gamer, the Krank Formula Fire Pro, and the driver he designed with LA Golf. Since the 2024 Masters, he’s also played irons with curved faces to mitigate misses.

“When a shot is hit off-center, especially at the force and speed that he’s hitting it at — this happens for every golfer, but obviously it’s amplified in his case,” Bazzel said.

The forward CG DeChambeau requires to keep his spin down also makes the driver more susceptible to opening and closing on a miss, which is why the face curvature becomes so important.

TaylorMade is uniquely positioned to create faces with those profiles thanks to their carbonwood technology. Not only is the material lighter than titanium faces, but it can be created with tighter tolerances and with more accurate shaping.

“You’re designing to zero tolerance, and then you also have the benefit of the consistency of the face,” Rietveld said. “Bryson hits a lot of drivers. Bryson hits a lot of balls at high speed. That driver will hold its shape and hold everything for thousands of shots.”

Carbon faces also allow TaylorMade to create new iterations faster than they could with titanium.

The shape is very particular to help it move through the air, and it’s a shape Bazzel said the average consumer wouldn’t go for.

“When you look at the shape of the product, you’ll notice it’s a little bit more toe-shaped, which a lot of average golfers probably would not want that,” he said. “But from an aerodynamic standpoint, it’s advantageous.”

It’s truly a driver optimized for the extreme end of the bell curve. But DeChambeau, along with TaylorMade, thinks more extreme swing speed players are coming.

The two drivers that landed on the conforming list this week are actually the second iteration of prototype heads developed with DeChambeau, Rietveld said. The first testing was done with DeChambeau using the standard Qi4D heads just to see how the platform would hold up with his speeds.

A significant round of testing took place around Masters week in Dallas, where Rietveld gathered data and feedback from DeChambeau before TaylorMade created the current prototypes for this week.

So far, DeChambeau seems to like what he sees. On the range this week at Shinnecock, he was intentionally hitting balls off the heel and toe that were still flying on target.

The driver has a stated loft of 7 degrees, again to help manage DeChambeau’s spin, and is actually set one click lower from the upright setting to help him produce his desired draw ball flight. That’s key because, as Rietveld points out, they could take a 9-degree head and make it 7 degrees using a loft sleeve, but starting at 7 degrees lets them get the face and lie angles exactly where DeChambeau wants them.

He’s also playing the new Project X Titan Black 70TX shaft after playing a Project X prototype for much of the year. The build he’s using at Shinnecock puts his launch around 13 degrees with 2100 rpm spin.

Johnny Wunder contributed to this report.

Golf Pride continues to be the best in class

After the first round at Shinnecock, eight of the nine players to shoot 68 or better played Golf Pride grips.

In total, 142 of the 156-player field played a Golf Pride Grip.

Check this out

This section is dedicated to cool photos we’ve snapped recently on Tour, but haven’t had a reason to share yet. This week, check out the custom oil can finished X Forged and Apex MB prototype irons built for Min Woo Lee to test.

Odds and Ends

Some other gear changes and notes we’re tracking this week.

Adam Scott was one of more than 70 pros — including Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Wyndham Clark, Min Woo Lee, Justin Rose, Viktor Hovland, Chris Gotterup— opting for a 2- or 3-utility-iron this week in place of a high-lofted fairway wood because of the high winds. This is after just a few pros used utility irons last year at Oakmont… Patrick Cantlay switched to a Spider Tour X DBL Bend … Sahith Theegala added a new Ping G440 2-hybrid, replacing his 4-wood and retiring his older G425 “Frankenhybrid” … TaylorMade blew away the fairway wood count with 102, 47 percent of all in play, 40 being Qi4D models … Fujikura swept the driver (45.9%), overall wood (44.1%) and hybrid shafts (37.9%).

3 things you should read/watch

A selection of GOLF content from the past week that may interest you.

Min Woo Lee isn’t afraid to use prototype clubs on the big stage | Bag Spy – Take a deep dive into Min Woo Lee’s gear setup and see how its evolved with his recent swing changes.

How Titleist is fitting GTS drivers for the U.S. Open – Johnny Wunder chats with Titleist’s Nick Geyer on the rollout of Titleist’s new GTS drivers at the U.S. Open.

Wyndham Clark signs Ping’s first putter-only endorsement contract – On the eve of the U.S. Open, Wyndham Clark and Ping announced a first-of-its-kind endorsement contract for the brand.

The author welcomes your comments at Jack.Hirsh@golf.com.

Want to overhaul your bag in 2026? Find a club-fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.

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Every golfer knows how frustrating it is when your swing is off and you can’t pinpoint the problem. From consulting an instructor, to overanalyzing swing footage and even searching the internet for answers, nothing is off limits if it means getting your game back on track. As we’ve recently learned, this concept doesn’t only extend to amateurs. 

In a press conference with Crushers GC following their team win at LIV Golf Korea, Bryson DeChambeau revealed that he used Gemini, Google’s Artificial Intelligence assistant, ahead of the final round as a last-minute tool to help identify flaws in his swing mechanics.

According to DeChambeau, his swing issues started to arise at the end of his first round. He explained that it felt like his hands were getting ahead of his body, which made it hard for him to turn the club over. 

“The beginning of the first round I felt great. Golf swing felt in sync and then it started getting out of sync,” he said.

“[My] hands just felt like they were moving forward like this and I couldn’t get the club to turn over. Even if I tried to stop it here, it still wouldn’t turn over,” DeChambeau continued.

After battling swing issues for the next two rounds, he realized the problem wasn’t going to work itself out. So, the Crushers GC Captain spent a few hours on the range following Saturday’s third round to diagnose and correct flaws in his swing mechanics — but his breakthrough never came. 

“I didn’t actually figure it out on the range,” DeChambeau said.

That’s when he turned to Gemini.

“I was talking to AI quite a bit last night trying to go through some different physics principles that makes the club turn over, having some alpha torque and gamma torque put in there,” he said.

After working with Gemini, DeChambeau seemingly identified the cause of his swing struggles — noting grip pressure and tension as two contributing factors.

“I came out here today with just a little bit more freer hands, and I felt the club a lot better, and I felt like I could close the club a lot more effectively and then I started striping it,” DeChambeau said. 

“I feel like I’m on the right path now,” he said. 

With the 2026 U.S. Open, at Shinnecock Hills, just weeks away, it will be interesting to see if DeChambeau can keep up this momentum and get his game trending in the right direction — especially after a particularly disappointing missed cut at the 2026 PGA Championship.

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Bryson DeChambeau is back in action for the first time since his ugly missed cut at the 2026 PGA Championship. Ahead of this week’s LIV Golf Korea event, and amid continued speculation on LIV Golf’s future, the two-time major winner offered wide-ranging comments on where his game and LIV’s push for new investors stand.

In addition to revealing the simplest and “best” way he can contribute to LIV Golf’s survival, DeChambeau opened up on the “tough” criticism he’s received recently, and how that criticism has impacted him personally as well as his future plans.

DeChambeau reveals how he can help LIV survive: ‘Giving all I can’

DeChambeau has spoken often since Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund chose to pull future funding from LIV Golf.

At times, DeChambeau has flirted with the idea of a PGA Tour return. Often in the same response, he’s lofted the idea of giving up pro golf and becoming a full-time YouTube creator.

But on Monday at the 2026 LIV Golf Korea event in Busan, South Korea, DeChambeau sounded like he was fully on board with helping LIV Golf secure its future existence.

News

'If the players want me back': Bryson DeChambeau lays out 2 demands for PGA Tour return

By: Kevin Cunningham

He revealed he was “surprised” by the PIF’s decision to abandon LIV Golf so suddenly, but he also expressed “optimism” in LIV’s business model.

“We were surprised that [the PIF] pulled out as quickly as they did. We didn’t really see that coming,” DeChambeau said on Monday. “But that’s okay. One door closes, another opens. I think that’s the way a lot of us are looking at it. I think we all have optimism that there is a business plan that makes sense for team golf. I’d quite honestly actually — how do I say it? I’m very optimistic with the business plan of team golf compared to other models, in my opinion.”

“But again, other models have worked as well, so I’m not going to say that one is better than the other, but I do see value in what team golf can provide not only worldwide but also in grass rooting the game of golf,” he continued. “National support, team national support, city local support, we grass root ourselves there. There’s a couple ideas that we have — quite a few ideas that we have that could be interesting.”

While DeChambeau was speaking to LIV Golf’s team format, and how that could be attractive to fans and successful financially, LIV Golf’s current business plan is simple: find big-money investors fast or go out of business. Bryson spoke to that as well.

“We’ll see if investors like it or not,” he said. “I’m giving all I can to make it happen, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t happen.”

When asked specifically how Bryson can help LIV Golf in its mission to find new funding, DeChambeau said “ultimately it’s up to the executives,” while his most important roles are to play his best this week, sign autographs and “have a good time.”

“I go out there on the first tee on Thursday and hit a beautiful drive down the middle of the fairway, hopefully. That’s what we’re focused on. In the background, yeah, we’re trying to help where we can, but ultimately it’s up to executives and everybody banding together. If we all band together, there’s an opportunity here. If not, it’s going to be a different day for all of us,” DeChambeau said. “But for me, how I support, go out and hit a great drive on the first tee, play a great round of golf, sign autographs after and have a good time.”

Bryson DeChambeau thanks ‘tough’ critics for fueling ‘positive fire’

DeChambeau was a divisive figure in pro golf long before LIV Golf arrived. When he gave the upstart league its biggest boost by joining up in 2022, criticism increased.

LIV Golf’s recent funding issues and his own sometimes bizarre and contradictory comments about his own future plans have resulted in more criticism for DeChambeau. Missed cuts at the first two majors of the year haven’t helped Bryson’s case.

When asked how he deals with such an onslaught of negativity in his LIV Golf Korea press conference, DeChambeau spoke at length, declaring his “respect” for everyone’s opinion, even if those opinions conclude that he’s “the worst thing for golf.”

“I respect everybody’s opinion on me. I respect everybody that says that I’m the worst thing for golf or I’m the best thing for golf. It’s okay,” DeChambeau said.

News

'Don't think footage is real': Bryson DeChambeau gets conspiratorial in bizarre interview

By: Kevin Cunningham

He went on to explain that criticism doesn’t “distract” him from his greater “mission” to help the game, and that he cares about golf so much because he’s seen “what it can do for people’s lives.”

“The reality is I’m so focused on what I can do for the game that somebody saying something online or to me personally in my face is not going to distract me from the mission that I have,” DeChambeau explained. “I hope can understand that, that my goal is bigger than just winning every tournament every single week. Do I want to win every week? 100 percent. Do I care about the game sometimes more than my own life? Yeah. Because I see what it can do for people’s lives. That’s ultimately why I care so much and I’m so passionate and I want the best for everybody.”

DeChambeau also thanked his critics, because while he admitted the criticism is “tough to see,” it also provides him with “inspiration” and helps him make decisions in his life.

“So when people are saying these things about me, I know my mission. I know what I’m here to do. Sometimes it’s tough to see, but sometimes it’s an inspiration for me. Fuels positive fire in my stomach. I have to honestly thank everybody because it’s what helps me make the next decision in my life, in a positive way. It’s never a negative,” he said. “I never try to do things in spite or out of non-caring about things or people or anybody else. The other side, this side, doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, we’re just playing golf. We’re just hitting a ball into a hole 450 yards away, sometimes longer.”

He continued: “I think people love to say something, and you have to respect that. I think everybody’s opinion is valid. All I can do is continue to be the best every single day that I can, whether I win tournaments out here, I win majors or don’t win majors or finish dead last out here. It doesn’t matter to me, as long as I’m working as hard as I can and giving as much as I can, that’s all that really matters.

“I hope that I can look over and see a kid looking up smiling at me so I can go sign an autograph because that is what makes me come back every day.”

The 2026 LIV Golf Korea event kicks off this Thursday. DeChambeau gets his next opportunity to break his major missed-cut streak in a few weeks’ time at the 2026 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, where he’ll be hunting for his third title.

“I’m really excited for the future over at Shinnecock and overseas, as well, for the Open Championship,” DeChambeau said to close out his press conference. “Head down, keep moving forward.”

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The last two months have not been kind to Bryson DeChambeau. The two-time major champion has suffered two straight missed cuts in majors at the Masters and PGA. LIV Golf, which he is the face of, faces extinction.

In an appearance on the “Katie Miller Pod” this week, DeChambeau provided little insight into his or LIV’s future. What he did do, however, is question the footage from the first moon landing, though not the landing itself (“I tend to go that route”). He did not question the existence of UAPs (also known as UFOs) or “inter-dimensional beings.”

DeChambeau says he believes in UFOs but not moon-landing footage

In the midst of his wide-ranging interview on the “Katie Miller Pod,” DeChambeau did touch on topics like LIV’s tenuous future and playing golf with President Trump, but he didn’t share anything we hadn’t heard before.

Elsewhere in his appearance, however, Bryson did reveal some new insight into his thoughts about a decades-long “conspiracy theory”: that the U.S. faked the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing.

Fortunately for scientists the world over, DeChambeau confirmed his belief that the Apollo 11 mission did land on the moon. He said, “I tend to go that route,” because Elon Musk says so.

“Look, Elon [Musk] says we’ve definitely gone [to the moon]. So I tend to go that route, because he’s the man that knows quite a bit about all that,” DeChambeau said in the interview.

“Artemis just went around the moon,” he added, referring to NASA’s 2026 Artemis II mission. “So I do believe if we spent a lot of our resources like they say we did, I think we did.”

News

Bryson DeChambeau's different. His PGA MC was another reminder

By: Michael Bamberger

While he didn’t debate the moon landing, DeChambeau did claim that the footage from the Apollo 11 lunar mission was faked.

“I don’t think the footage is real,” he said. “But I think we did go to the moon. I don’t know about the footage. It’s quite, it’s quite wild.”

For the record, the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969 was real. Among many other things, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin placed reflector arrays on the lunar surface during humanity’s first visit there. More reflectors were added during the Apollo 14 and Apollo 15 lunar missions. Those reflectors are relied on to this day.

Here’s a quick explanation from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory:

“The longevity of the experiment can be attributed at least in part to its simplicity: The arrays themselves require no power. Four telescopes at observatories in New Mexico, France, Italy and Germany fire lasers at them, measuring the time that it takes for a laser pulse to bounce off the reflectors and return to Earth. This allows the distance to be measured to within a fraction of an inch (a few millimeters), and scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory analyze the results.”

The reflectors have allowed us to gain a better understanding of tides on Earth, as well as the “orbit, rotation and orientation of the Moon.” They also taught us that the distance between the Earth and Moon is increasing by 1.5 inches a year.

Furthermore, today’s spacecraft rely on the lunar reflectors and the data gained from them to orbit and land on the moon.

As to DeChambeau’s claim that the moon-landing footage is not real, I’ll leave that debunking to others.

The moon landing conspiracy was not the only time DeChambeau broached the topic of space in his “Katie Miller Pod” interview. He also laid down his beliefs when it comes to aliens and UAPs, claiming they are “more than just aliens from another world.”

“I do think that there are inter-dimensional beings out there, for sure,” DeChambeau said. “I do believe in UAPs. UAPs, UFOs, I think they’re more than just aliens from another world. Maybe aliens from another world. But I think there’s more. There’s a lot more to that story.”

DeChambeau’s future unclear in light of LIV news, major MCs

Two months ago, it seemed like DeChambeau was having a dream start to his season. He won back-to-back LIV events in March at LIV Golf Singapore and LIV Golf South Africa.

Those wins came one month after what is arguably the biggest LIV Golf moment in history, Anthony Kim’s shocking win at LIV Golf Adelaide.

As the calendar turned to April, though, DeChambeau’s season started taking a nosedive. So, too, did LIV Golf’s prospects.

News

'If the players want me back': Bryson DeChambeau lays out 2 demands for PGA Tour return

By: Kevin Cunningham

Coming into Augusta full of confidence, Bryson shot a four-over 76 in the opening round of the 2026 Masters. A 74 on Friday, which featured a triple-bogey on the 18th hole, saw him miss the cut.

Shortly after the Masters, news broke that the Saudi Arabian PIF would pull all funding from LIV Golf following the 2026 season, casting doubt over LIV Golf’s future beyond this season. DeChambeau is the league’s biggest star, and his contract is up after this season.

Then at the 2026 PGA Championship last week, Bryson shot 76-71 to miss the cut for the third time in his last four major starts.

DeChambeau has floated many different possibilities for his future considering LIV’s difficulties, from becoming a full-time YouTube creator to rejoining the PGA Tour “if they just want me back.”

It’s a conundrum he reiterated in his “Katie Miller Pod” interview.

“I’m in that weird space right now, I don’t know what to do, either: content creation or professional golf,” DeChambeau said on the podcast. “I don’t know what to do right now.”

But he hasn’t committed to anything beyond finishing out the 2026 LIV season.

The next time we’ll see DeChambeau on the course outside of LIV is at the year’s next major. The 2026 U.S. Open kicks off at New York’s legendary Shinnecock Hills on June 18. DeChambeau will be vying for his third U.S. Open title.

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NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — This Bryson DeChambeau, he’s just … different. Right? We’ve known that for years now. We’ve celebrated it, we’ve stomped all over it, we’ve come back for more, which gets us all caught up and brings us to late on Friday afternoon, suppertime calling, the round crawling, and Bryson playing from 10 to the house with no chance whatsoever of making the cut. And still, there he was, Bryson in full.

Example: In your life, have you ever seen a golfer, pro or am, pick something out of his ear with an extra-long tee? Well there was Bryson, doing just that, like a Q-tip. It’s unlikely his playing partners, Rickie Fowler and Ludvig Aberg, noted this act of aural care. Golfers are in their own world. We just are.

On the par-4 15th, Bryson made what we 90-shooters call a double sandy. He drove it in the right trap. His second shot found a home in a left greenside trap. His bunker shot was indifferent. He holed a mini-bomb for a 4. Does a two-time U.S. Open winner with a billion (or whatever it is) YouTube followers even know the term? You wonder.

Note to self: Ask Bryson about 15.

It’s amazing how it can go, if you’re Arnold Palmer in his prime, if you’re Tiger Woods in his prime, if you’re Bryson DeChambeau in his prime. You show up at a major venue on Thursday morning and the main thing you’re thinking about is another notch on your belt. Another Grand Slam victory attached to your name forever. Palmer died with seven. Woods nearly died with 15, and it doesn’t seem likely that he’ll win another. DeChambeau has those two U.S. Opens. Will there be other major victories in his life? We don’t know; we can’t know. Nobody knows.

In the meantime, he’s golf’s $500 million (or something like that) free agent. It can’t be easy, being a professional golfer with a unique swing, a reinvented personality and a number that big attached to a notably broad back.

At the Masters, DeChambeau made a triple-bogey 7 on 18 and missed the cut by two. And still he signed autographs on his way to the scorer’s room. At the PGA Championship, here at the never-looked-better Aronimink links, he shot 76-71 for seven over. The cut was four over. In addition to a thousand other things, Bryson DeChambeau is a stock price and his stock is rising and falling all the time.

“I don’t think you guys understand, I really have to get to scoring,” DeChambeau told the kids as he signed and signed and signed on his way to scoring. No, they likely did not understand. But they definitely knew they had secured the most meaningful autograph in golf today. They’ve seen Bryson try to break 50. They’ve seen him hit balls over his house. They’ve seen the things that matter. On Friday, a few of them might have seen a drive on 12 that reached a crosswalk that nobody was expected to reach, 330 up a hill.

The sleeves of his sweater went up, above the elbow. They went down. They went up. They went down. Ludvig ate a sandwich. Ludvig ate a banana. Rickie Fowler ignored a thousand pleas of “RICKIE-RICKIE-RICKIE.” Bryson fived his way, green to tee, green to tee, green to tee.

His last few waggles are all his own, up and down, up and down. They’re north and south, the lat muscles in his upper back, through his shirt and through his sweater, bulging all the while.

THACKBAM!

Nobody in golf hits it that hard. Nobody makes that sound. Bryson DeChambeau is 32 years old. You can do that when you’re 32 and built like a brick house.

He was wearing his team hat. He’s a Crusher. He’s the captain of his LIV team, the Crushers, at least through the end of the 2026 season. Then all bets are off. Brooks Koepka was in the threesome behind DeChambeau. Brooks was a Smasher, but he parted LIV for more familiar pastures.

Yo, Bryson, you looking to play tomorrow?

Philadelphia fans are special. We just are. 

Bryson’s two guys were waiting for him beside the 18th green. You ask if you might get Bryson for a half-minute. You have one question in mind:

Yo, Bryson: do you know what a double sandy is?

Probably yes — he grew up playing public golf, the son of a golf pro — but maybe not.

Not gonna happen, one guy says.

Not today, says the other.

Both are shaking their heads no, just in case you don’t know that no means no.

Bryson signs for the kids, he signs his scorecard, he walks by a small gaggle of reporters waiting for crumbs from golf’s $500 million (or whatever) man.

“I appreciate you guys, I appreciate you guys,” Bryson said on his march out, trailed by his fellows. He made the symbol of the praying hands. It was like seeing a real-life emoji.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@golf.com.

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NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Bryson DeChambeau stood with his arms crossed, staring out into the distance. His team stood around him, two phones ready to film different angles of his swing.

No one said a word.

It was late Wednesday night at Aronimink Golf Club, 15 hours before DeChambeau’s first round tee time at the PGA Championship, and the two-time U.S. Open champion was the only one left on the range as the skies darkened and rain threatened. Finally, DeChambeau took a deep breath and started to walk his team through his thoughts and what he was trying to find in the dirt outside of Philadelphia.

He gestured with his hands to mimic that they weren’t synced up with his body; they were seemingly late with irons and wedges, and he was getting too quick with them with his woods. He missed right and left. He hit a ball or two, sighed and looked at the ground. Then, he looked at the video. Then, he’d hit a few more. Then, switch clubs and do the same. No answer seemed to arrive.

That’s a bad place to be on the eve of a major championship, left to try and make your way around the championship course with smoke and mirrors until you can conjure up the feeling you have lost with no discernible timetable for its arrival.

Bryson DeChambeau didn’t find that feeling on Thursday at Aronimink as he scuffed and scraped his way around the Donald Ross design while the issues he was fighting on the range constantly reared their heads.

DeChambeau tried to flight his approach shot into his first hole, the par-4 10th, and came up well short en route to an opening par. Then came the 11th, a par-4 with a small green that demands players control their spin. DeChambeau flew this approach shot past the flag and couldn’t pull it back off the slope, leaving him a slippery downhill putt. He gave it a tap, and the ball raced past the hole and settled 57 feet away. He made bogey and then made another at No. 13 when he flew his approach shot over the back of the green. As he walked up to his ball, DeChambeau had a lengthy conversation with his caddie Greg Bodine, making the same hand gesture he had some 17 hours earlier on the range.

On the par-3 17th, DeChambeau flared his tee shot right near the grandstand. He slumped his shoulders and stared at the contact point while his ball sailed offline. His pitch didn’t make it to the green and he dropped another shot. The animated venting continued as he walked to the next tee. He made another bogey at 18 and turned in 4-over 39, the worst opening nine of his PGA Championship career. A string of pars came next, with DeChambeau trying to will himself back into contention. He missed makable birdie looks at five and six before a sloppy bogey at the seventh moved him to five over. After missing his par putt, DeChambeau tapped in for his five and then made a motion with his hands toward Bodine. He was mimicking the movement of the putt he had just missed, but he very well could’ve been saying, “no more.” DeChambeau didn’t tap out, but the knockout blow came on the next hole.

After a 20-minute wait on the par-3 8th tee box, DeChambeau once again hit a chunky, flare with his iron. His shot landed well short of the green in the thick rough. DeChambeau then blasted his second shot over the green. He chunked his first chip from the back collection area and sent his fourth past the flag. He made the putt coming back, but a double bogey left him at seven over through 17. He birdied the final hole to card a 76.

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Then, Bryson DeChambeau found himself in the same place that he was 21 hours before, at a mostly empty range at the back of a golden-age property.

He grabbed three buckets of balls and moved through most of the clubs in his bag several times. Players came and went, found something or gave up, and DeChambeau kept trying to dig it out of the dirt.

After another hooking fairway metal, DeChambeau let out a big sigh and rubbed his eyes. He made a motion about flipping his wrists. “That’s just so bad,” he muttered to Bodine and his manager, Connor Olson. Olson filmed DeChambeau from behind and down the line. They went over video after video. Olson asked two separate camera crews not to film as DeChambeau sent shot after shot into the cool Pennsylvania air. “That’s just not what it should be … I just …,” DeChambeau said with a soft sigh after sending another mid-iron toward nothing.

Finally, 90 minutes, three buckets and seemingly no answers later, DeChambeau grabbed a Sharpie and headed toward the rope line to sign autographs.

When asked if he wanted to talk, DeChambeau looked up and offered a strained smile.

“No thanks,” he said. “I’m good.”

But all the evidence at Aronimink said that nothing was further from the truth

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The post ‘I am so confused’: Bryson DeChambeau stumped by rules amid disastrous PGA start appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘I am so confused’: Bryson DeChambeau stumped by rules amid disastrous PGA start appeared first on Golf.

Expectations were high for Bryson DeChambeau heading into the 2026 PGA Championship. Coming off back-to-back runners-up at the last two PGAs, DeChambeau planned to bomb his way around Aronimink on the way to his first PGA Championship.

But in Thursday’s opening round, Aronimink’s challenge stumped the two-time major champion, sending his score soaring. And then, when a wayward tee shot landed on a staircase, the rules stumped DeChambeau in a moment that exemplified his disastrous opening round.

Here’s what you need to know.

DeChambeau plummets down PGA Championship leaderboard on Day 1

DeChambeau’s PGA Championship went sideways right from the start. When his approach shot went over the steep green at 11, his second hole of the day, Bryson putted it 40 feet by and made his first bogey.

He hit it long on the 13th, too, dropping another shot to quickly fall to two over for the tournament.

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It didn’t get better from there.

He closed out his first nine with back-to-back bogeys to shoot 39 on the front. After settling down to make six consecutive pars after the turn, DeChambeau got back on the bogey train at 7.

At 8, he lost his tee shot well right of the green, then chipped his second off the other side of the putting surface. A double bogey followed, sending DeChambeau plummeting down the leaderboard into a tie for 106th at seven over.

While many holes seemed to stump DeChambeau on Thursday, it was at the par-4 2nd where the Rules of Golf got the better of the star LIV Golf player.

DeChambeau debates rules official after sending shot into staircase

Aronimink’s 2nd hole presents an interesting test for pros at this week’s PGA Championship. The par-4 is only 406 yards long, but it features a sharp dogleg left. That proved too much for DeChambeau on Thursday.

He was already sitting at four over when he arrived at the 2nd, his 11th hole of the day. He chose a wood off the tee but mishit it, sending it ballooning well right of the fairway, directly toward a grandstand.

Eventually, Bryson’s ball came to rest on the first step of a staircase leading to the grandstand.

That’s where the rules confusion began. Moments later, cameras caught DeChambeau next to his ball in a deep discussion with a PGA rules official.

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At the start of the video, a frustrated DeChambeau declares, “I am so confused right now” as the official tries to explain the rule to him.

The rule in this case? The grandstand represents a temporary immovable obstruction, which is considered an abnormal course condition governed by Rule 16 of the Rules of Golf.

The USGA defines temporary immovable obstruction as “a structure that is temporarily added on or next to the course, usually for a particular competition, and is fixed or not readily movable. Examples of TIOs are temporary tents, scoreboards, grandstands, television towers and toilets.”

In the case of a TIO, the player normally takes relief by dropping a ball in a relief area based on the nearest point of complete relief.

That seems to be where DeChambeau and the rules official got crossed up. With his ball on the stairs, DeChambeau had no doubt he was permitted a free drop. But he initially thought the rules official had declared that the muddy area in front of staircase was not the nearest point of relief, which would have allowed DeChambeau to take a drop farther from the grandstand. But the official corrected him.

“Oh, is there relief on this?” DeChambeau asked the official, gesturing at the muddy area.

“Yes,” the official responded.

“Oh it is,” DeChambeau said back to him, finally understanding the situation. DeChambeau then looked at his caddie, gestured at the official and said, “He said it wasn’t.”

With that cleared up, DeChambeau hit a 156-yard shot to 22 feet, two-putting from there to finish with a par.

You can watch a video of the moment below.

While DeChambeau made a mess of the 7th and 8th holes, his 16th and 17th of the round, he ended the round on a high note. DeChambeau made his first birdie of the tournament at the par-5 9th, finishing with a six-over 76 in Round 1.

That means on Friday DeChambeau won’t be fighting to get into contention; he’ll just be fighting to make the cut.

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The post Gary Williams doesn’t think Bryson DeChambeau will go through with unique LIV backup plan appeared first on Golf.

The post Gary Williams doesn’t think Bryson DeChambeau will go through with unique LIV backup plan appeared first on Golf.

With the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund withdrawing financial backing from LIV Golf after the 2026 season, everyone is wondering what’s next. What’s next for the breakaway league? And what’s next for its marquee players, namely Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm.

This week at LIV Virginia, Rahm said he didn’t “see a way out” of his current contract with LIV, which goes for several more years. As for DeChambeau, whose contract ends after the 2026 season, he told several outlets, including ESPN and Sports Illustrated, that he’s prepared to focus on growing his YouTube channel while playing in the tournaments that “want him” should LIV go away. DeChambeau admitted that his team has spoken with the PGA Tour but would not divulge the nature of the talks. The two-time U.S. Open champion told Skratch it would ultimately be up to the PGA Tour members to decide if they want him to come back.

Golf Channel’s Gary Williams joined the latest episode of the Subpar podcast to discuss where LIV goes from here and whether or not he thinks DeChambeau is serious about focusing on YouTube and playing the four majors.

“No, not in full,” Williams told co-hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz. “He’s being him. He’s also the guy who, when he was ascending, got maniacal about long drives and started participating in long drive contests. Which people were going, that is going to be debilitating to you actually putting scores in a box. No, he will not do that.”

Williams noted it would be “disappointing” if DeChambeau chose to prioritize YouTube over competitive professional golf since he is currently in the middle of his major championship window.

“It’s funny that he’s suggesting [focusing on YouTube],” Williams said. “If he does do that, it’s disappointing in this respect — I give him immense respect for this: he has figured out Augusta National to a degree, where he had almost no idea how to solve that Rubik’s Cube. He contends in almost every major. … He is always going to be a factor at a U.S. Open. He’s likely always going to be a factor at a PGA. He is as much of a sure thing to be on the first couple of pages of a leaderboard at a major championship. I give him credit for that. But he’s not going to do that, and if he does do that, he won’t continue to contend in major championships. That’ll be too bad because major championship prime windows are not as long as people think they are.”

When Brooks Koepka left LIV Golf to return to the PGA Tour last December, DeChambeau had all the leverage in contract negotiations with LIV and the PIF. Now that the PIF is out of the equation, Williams sees the PGA Tour as the only option for DeChambeau. The leverage he once had is gone.

“But what’s happened to him, my analogy in terms of what he thought he had to play with was, the Yankees and the Dodgers are both bidding for him and now the Dodgers are no longer interested,” Williams said. “That’s the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund. So are the Yankees, the PGA Tour, going to bid against themselves? No, they are not.”

To hear more from Williams on LIV’s future, DeChambeau’s value to the PGA Tour and more, check out the YouTube video below.

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The post Can Scott O’Neil save LIV Golf? Here’s what he thinks is possible appeared first on Golf.

STERLING, Va. — When Scott O’Neil gets stressed, he eats. His snack of choice: chocolate-chip cookies baked by his wife, Lisa. At Trump National D.C. on Wednesday, O’Neil said he’d downed four of them, but you couldn’t have blamed him if he felt the urge to munch on a few more.

O’Neil, who is in his 17th month as LIV Golf’s chief executive officer, is in a pinch. His league’s financial backers — Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund — announced that they are divesting from LIV at the end of the 2026 season, leaving O’Neil and his board of advisors to find a new investor or investors, and quickly.

O’Neil will tell you that the league doubled its revenue from 2024 to ’25. That LIV expects four of its events and 10 of its 13 teams to turn a profit this year. That viewership and ticket sales are up. But the fact remains that he is taking to market an organization that has burned through billions, and which O’Neil has said could be a decade away from profitability. Complicating matters further, LIV lynchpin Bryson DeChambeau is unsigned beyond this season. O’Neil is confident DeChambeau will stick around but he cannot tell potential investors with certainty that the league’s biggest star will be part of its future.

O’Neil knows time is of the essence, but his focus, he says, is singular. “If any amount of that time is spent in any other fashion other than working towards this transaction, it’s a terrible use of my time,” he told GOLF.com in an interview earlier this week.

O’Neil says he thrives on the pressure, that he’s wired for facing and solving hard problems, that his more than 25 years in the sports and entertainment industries — including posts with the NBA’s New York Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers, the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles and the NHL’s New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils — will serve him well as he works to secure a path forward for LIV.

In a 30-minute conversation, O’Neil spoke to the pressure of the moment, the DeChambeau dilemma and what kind of investors he believes might be drawn to a global golf league.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

GOLF: Let’s start with DeChambeau. There has been much speculation about the status of his contract. Can you provide any kind of update?

SCOTT O’NEIL: We have negotiations with players ongoing. His happens to get quite a bit of attention. Bryson is an extraordinary partner. He is the most popular golfer on the planet. He’s winning. He loves team golf. He believes in the vision of LIV. He’s willing to travel around the world, grow the game. And of all the athletes I’ve worked with in my career — and there’ve been a lot of them, from a lot of different sports — he’s the most pure to the mission of an athlete I’ve ever met. And Bryson has asked to sit side by side with me and Ducera [LIV’s investment bank] to raise money together.

As you’re seeking investors, how do you navigate those conversations without knowing DeChambeau’s status? Because presumably one of the first questions a potential investor will ask is, “Is Bryson part of the deal?”

Bryson is more pro-LIV than I am. We talked yesterday [Tuesday] about him joining me for the investor meetings, so I think that’ll be a pretty good indication as to what’s going to transpire. He’s really smart. He’s very intuitive. He’s as good a brand builder as I’ve ever seen. From a marketing standpoint, his creativity almost knows no bounds, surrounds himself with good people, and has a real strong opinion as to how we should go forward together. So he’s very well in the plans, and he’ll be joining me on a lot of investor pitches.

If you’re unable to come to an agreement with Bryson, can LIV survive without him?

I don’t think we’ll have to.

You’re that bullish that he’ll be a part of the future of this league?

Yes.

What makes you say that?

I spent time with him. He’s my partner in this business. He’s a great thought partner. He’s a leader. And he believes in this product. I’ve seen it, every day. … He does what he says he’s gonna do at a world-class level. When the light shines brightest, he can certainly step up, and when the lights aren’t on, it’s the same thing, which I love.

Do you have an investment figure in mind that you need to hit to make LIV viable?

I do, yeah. I won’t share it.

Any sense for what kind of investors LIV might appeal to?

I think there are three groups generally, at least that’s what we’ve heard from so far. And we haven’t done any outbound. We’ve just taken inbound calls.

Private equity is the most obvious. Most of the guys who run private-equity funds play golf. There are so many private-

equity funds that are directed to sports now, which wouldn’t have been the case 10 years ago, but it is now.

Then there are family offices. If you look at who’s buying up sports teams, particularly internationally, they’re coming from family offices.

And then there’s the high net-worth billionaires, who say, “I love golf. This would be fun.”

There are advantages and disadvantages to each of those groups. And we’ll talk to all of them, see what the best fit is. And whether it’s some combination, whether it’s one or whether it’s four, I’m not quite sure yet. We won’t know until we get to the market.

The PIF is withdrawing its funding at the end of the season, and its governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, has stepped down from your board. But the PIF still owns LIV Golf, correct?

Right, the ownership structure has not changed.

Does that mean as you as you’re seeking investors that the PIF still has a seat at the table? Will they have to sign off on whatever decisions you make in the coming months?

I wouldn’t comment on that. But that’s a good question.

There was a player meeting Tuesday evening here in Virginia. Were you in attendance?  

Yes. That was my meeting.

What was on the agenda?

We talked about the future of LIV, talked about some of the reports, talked about the reality, how we’re going to market, the fact that this has been and always will be a player-driven, player-led league. We do that through our competition. We do that through our marketing. We do that through ownership structure, and as we partner with them. We talked about the importance of them making sure that they’re showing up as their best selves on and off the course.

Did you see Graeme McDowell’s remarks to Sports Illustrated earlier this week?

I did not.

He said in part that LIV’s detachment from Saudi funding could benefit the league: “I don’t think we could have ever imagined how deep this would go. The hatred. It’s funny, but if we can shift the narrative away from Saudi Arabia and bring some U.S. money and get rid of that narrative … because that narrative is just nasty.” How do you respond to that?

I would have to read the whole article. I don’t want to duck the question, [but] I always like to see things in context, the way they were said and reported. I will tell you that I came into this role excited about the opportunity to grow it. Where it was, the investor base as it was, and today I stand even more excited about the opportunity and what the potential is.

The good news about a process when you’re raising money is it’s as pure a process as you can get. If you have a plan that people love and there can be a return, you will find your way. It’s as pure a form of competition as you will find. It just happens to be set up on a golf course, instead of in an office somewhere. Our jobs are to focus on a plan that we feel is sound. The players are going be partners and come along for the ride. And then finding some potential partner on the back end, which we’re pretty confident in.

What’s the go-or-no-go timeline look like for continuing past 2026?

If you think of the time of your waking hours as 100 percent, the only thing you can do to increase that [time] is to sleep less. If any amount of that time spent in any other fashion other than working towards this transaction, it’s a terrible use of my time. The good news is, when we have conversations like this, because golf is played by most of the people who make these kinds of decisions, it’s a great use time. So we’re completely aligned.

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In LIV’s new era, everyone (even Bryson!) has same question

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We are working at an incredible pace. Our partners, Alix Partners and Ducera, and our two board members, Gene Davis and John Zinman, understand the urgency. They understand the decision-making process. They’ve been through this before, and I’ve been through this before. This is kind of what we’re what we’re meant to do and meant to be and that’s why we’re here. But there’s certainly pressure. I love it; it’s what I like. I’m glad we’re in this situation.

You’re glad? Can you elaborate?

My whole life, if you look at my experience, I’ve always walked into roles where they’ve been really challenging. I choose them and they choose me. In fact, I remember one day [when I was working] at the Philadelphia 76ers — and I have four daughters — and it was a particularly spicy time in the media around the “trust the process” movement. [Ed note: The period when the 76ers intentionally maintained a weak roster to improve their draft picks.] I remember one of my daughters coming home, she was getting a hard time at school. So I sat all the girls down at the table and just had a nice conversation. I said, “The Golden State Warriors are not calling your daddy. It’s not how it works. We do hard things. We do hard things in life, we do hard things in our family, and we choose to do hard things at work.”

I think that’s where all the learning is. I think that’s where all the action is. That’s what all the fun is. When I accepted this role and recruited some of my best friends in the world to come work here with us, some really talented people out of really, really good jobs. I didn’t say to them, “Hey, this is gonna be great! I’m gonna travel the world. We’re gonna play a ton of golf, and it’s gonna be fun.” I said, “I’ve never seen a mountain this tall before.” That was my recruiting pitch. “I’ve never seen so many obstacles put up around this mountain, and yet I’ve never been more excited to scale it. Do you want to come and be part of this?”

Those are the people that are here. So everyone here opted into this. I know it’s hard for people to understand. I know uncertainty is hard for people to understand, and some people have spent their whole life in one role. And some people have taken a really safe path through life. I think those are wonderful experiences for people. I don’t have a judgmental bone in my body. I know what I choose. And I know what this team here chooses. And by the team, I don’t just mean my executive team or the staff that’s incredible that works here — but players, too, and caddies. Everybody chose this. If we wanted the carousel, we would have paid our two bucks and hopped on. We chose a roller coaster, Kingda Ka [a rollercoaster at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey].

You can’t choose Kingda Ka and then whine when it flips you upside down. You may scream, but it better be a scream of exhilaration. That’s where we find ourselves. This is a group of colleagues, friends, associates, professionals, executives, players that are banding together, locking arms, and saying, “Let’s go do this.”

So that’s what I mean [when I say “I’m glad”]. I don’t mean it to be sarcastic or funny or cynical. I mean it in the truest sense of the word. This is why we came here: to do something that’s really rewarding and challenging and stretching — and leading us or pushing us beyond what’s like a rational limit. This is as fun as it gets in this business.

Your idea of fun is little different than mine.

[Laughs] And that’s okay. If mine was the same as yours, I’d been doing what you do, right? And if yours were like mine, you’d be doing what I do.

From the outside looking in, in light of the billions in funding that’s going away, it looks like an impossible hill you’re trying to climb. I think it’s just hard for people to wrap their heads around.

I’ve been reading what the other tours are going through, and there’s quite a bit of transition, transformation, in some cases restructuring going on in golf, and I think it’s time for that. If we are going to continue to believe that golf is good, I hope you believe that resilience and consistency and humility and this notion of focusing on the flag and hard work, all the things that you learn through and around golf are good.

Then you have to ask yourself, “Well, is LIV Golf good?” That’s the series of questions, when taking this job, I asked myself: Is golf good? I think, yeah, golf is really good. The world is better with more golf in it. I believe that.

Then I asked myself, is the world of golf better with LIV in it? And I had like a 100-percent-unquestionable-not-even-close “yes.” Because we’re taking the game to markets that are starved for what we do. We’re introducing team golf, like, beyond the Ryder Cup and the Presidents Cup and college golf, the Olympics — this great notion of team golf. And then we’re infusing this sense of nationalism. You go to Australia and people wear Rippers hats and they’re going crazy for Cam [Smith] and Herbie [Lucas Herbert] and Liesh [Marc Lieshman] and Elvis [Smylie]. And you go to South Africa and they’re singing the national anthem on an 18, people are crying on the 1st tee, and you think, Huh, there’s something really special here.

And so that’s my series of questions: Does golf matter? Yes, golf is good. Does LIV Golf matter? Yes, it clearly does. It’s making an impact. Okay, how do we take all that stuff we done and how do we put that into a business that’s sustainable? And can make our players and other players want to be here and want to play? That part we’re very far along on. You’ll see it when the world sees it, and and I think investors are really going to like it.

You inherited a global golf league with a framework already in place. If you were starting one from scratch today, what would you do differently?

I can only speak to what I walked into [in January 2025]. It’s very hard to understand it. I read all the stuff. I looked at all the old documents. I looked at all the players who wanted to play for LIV, many of whom would surprise you quite a bit. Our biggest critics all made offers to come play, all of them, every one of them.

The media scrutiny was very intense. From what I understand, it was very difficult. You weren’t allowed to play at [certain] courses. You were restricted from working for sponsors. You were restricted from working for television networks. There’s major restrictions, OWGR restrictions. I can’t begin to imagine what that situation was like and what the team had to endure during that time. Because I can’t pretend to know; I wasn’t here.

But a lot of what was built was really special. The team concept works. The focus on attracting young people to this game with music and art and fashion and culture and food, it works. It’s worked in every other sport. This notion that there’s time for change when — I worked in the NBA when hand-checking was legal. I worked in the NHL when the two-line pass was not legal. And goalie pads were bigger. And overtime could last for a long time. I never worked in baseball, but I thought putting a run around second and having a pitch clock was, was — people would have thrown you out of the room 10 years ago. Yet Rob [Manfred, MLB commissioner] was courageous and Adam [Silver, NBA commissioner] was courageous and Gary [Bettman, NHL commissioner] is courageous, and good for them. I like the fact that there’s opportunity for change.

So to answer your question directly, I would say a lot of what you’ll see in the next 10 days or so is exactly what we would have built from scratch from the beginning.

Ten days? So big announcements are coming?

No, I wouldn’t say big announcement. But that’s about when we’ll start talking to players about where we’re heading and bringing them in and getting their feedback. I like where we’re heading. I’m not answering your question directly, but there’s a lot of what we do that I like a lot. And there are lots of new elements that we’ll pull in and do differently. But I love the teams. I love global. I love players as partners. I love player-run player involvement. And I love building the next generation of stars and the next generation of youth fans. I love a super social-media presence in terms of growing fan bases. I love bringing technology into the sport. So there’s a lot of stuff that I absolutely love that we’ve done and I’ve inherited and I’m grateful for that.

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