“It sucks!” – Bryson DeChambeau blasts driver after slow start

“A bad workman blames his tools.”

That would appear to be the latest theory Bryson DeChambeau is determined to test.

The American struggled off the tee all day in the first round of The Open Championship, hitting only four of 14 fairways. Indeed, had it not been for some audacious scrambling, he would have had to settle for something much worse than the one-over 71 he ultimately signed for.

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Speaking to the media at Royal St George’s, the 2020 US Open champion’s frustrations spilled over as he blasted: “The driver sucks!”

“It’s not a good face for me and we’re still trying to figure out how to make it good on the mishits,” said DeChambeau. “I’m living on the razor’s edge like I’ve told people for a long time. When I did get it outside of the fairway, like in the first cut and whatnot, I catch jumpers out of there and I couldn’t control my wedges.

“It’s quite finicky for me because it’s a golf course that’s pretty short, and so when I hit driver and it doesn’t go in the fairway – it’s first cut or whatever or it’s in the hay – it’s tough for me to get it onto the green and control that.

“In the middle of the fairway, like I had it on 18, I was able to hit a nice shot to 11 feet and almost made birdie. It’s kind of living on the razor’s edge.”

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Asked when he first realised there were issues with the driver, he added: “I’ve realised this for years now. This has happened since 2016-17 when players stopped drawing it. There’s not very many golfers that draw it anymore. It’s not because of spin rate. Everybody thinks it’s because we’re at 2000, 1800 spin or whatever. It’s not.

“It’s literally the physics and the way that they build heads now. It’s not the right design, unfortunately, and we’ve been trying to fix it.”