The reincarnation of Bryson DeChambeau

Neither Paul Casey nor Anirban Lahiri wanted to answer the question. Casey became transfixed by the floor and Lahiri squirmed in his seat.

“It’s safer if Baan answers this,” laughed the Englishman.

Their Crushers GC captain Bryson DeChambeau sat next to them, watching, smiling. He was as curious as anybody as to their answer. After all, the question was about him.

What’s the US Open champion’s role on the team?

A polite way of saying: What’s he really like?

“I don’t want to speak for myself about who I am,” grinned DeChambeau. “That’s for other people.”

After a silence almost long enough to qualify as uncomfortable, Lahiri spoke up.

“I guess he’s an enigma,” said the two-time DP World Tour winner. “Even he doesn’t truly understand who he is yet. He’s getting there. He’s closer there than he was maybe two years ago. That’s for damn sure.

“He’s obviously very, very passionate about what he does. Sometimes so much so that it’s our job is to say, hey, Bryson, come back to us.

“And it’s a good thing. This is why he goes berserk and makes 12 birdies, 13 birdies in a round. That’s his biggest strength. Sometimes that can be something that holds him back. But he’s learned to harness that.

“He’s the bomb. He’s the explosion that can go off at any point in time.”

“Hopefully, in a good way,” interjected Bryson.

“You make what you want of that statement,” continued Lahiri, barely missing a beat, “but it’s true in every which way. I think he’s comfortable now, and that’s a good thing for us.”

Sitting to his immediate left, DeChambeau nodded in agreement.

* * *

IT’S HARDLY AN ORIGINAL – or new – observation that Bryson DeChambeau has achieved the improbable: persuading a cynical and suspicious public to fall in love with him all over again. He’s gone from pariah to poster boy quicker than you can say ‘incalculatable’.

On Saturday night at the US Open, holding a three-shot lead over Rory McIlroy, Matthieu Pavon and Patrick Cantlay, he paused to reflect on how far he had come.

“Just thinking back three years ago,” he acknowledged, “the landscape was a lot different. I tried to show everybody who I was. I didn’t do it the right way and could have done a lot of things better.”

That’s for sure. With his idiosyncratic ways and wiles, DeChambeau made himself a lightning rod for derision. From spritzing his golf balls with water to simulate early-morning dew, to side-saddle putting, to using a protractor to determine “true pin locations”, to gaining over 50 pounds in an effort to hit the ball further, to claiming he wanted to live to be 140, to tinkering with one-length clubs, to claiming that he regards Augusta National as a par-67, to his infamous spat with Brooks Koepka… the 30-year-old’s list of quirks and controversies was long and inglorious.

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Combine all that with accusations of insincerity and a peculiar, self-aggrandising pseudo-intellectual shtick, it was almost inevitable that he ended up where he ended up: Outcast Alley.

He was singled out for special treatment by spectators and retaliated by having them ejected from tournaments. He engaged in a public spat with equipment manufacturer Cobra during the 2021 Open at Royal St George’s. Fellow players and senior tour officials – not least, Jay Monahan – were forced to speak up in his defence.

When he joined LIV in the summer of 2022, many dismissed him as a mercenary, a charlatan, just another greedy tour pro whose true colours had been exposed by a big cheque being waved under his nose.

All of which makes the rehabilitation of his image and reputation so damn fascinating.

In the 24 hours that followed his US Open victory in June, where enraptured crowds chanted his name, Google reported a 250% increase in searches for DeChambeau’s name. He also gained 150,000 new followers across his social media platforms and saw a collaboration between his LIV franchise Crushers GC and clothing manufacturer Stitch completely sell out.

What changed?

Well, his environment, for one. There can be no denying that LIV Golf has been good for Bryson, and in ways that extend way beyond the financial. It has allowed him to be his true, unvarnished, authentic self. It feels like a natural habit for him. He’s a disruptor; so is LIV. He’s a little bit different; so is LIV. He’s on a mission; so is LIV. He’s a self-styled revolutionary and out-of-the-box thinker; so is LIV. They’re kindred spirits. He’s traded being a misfit for fitting right in.

LIV Golf isn’t for everyone but it is absolutely perfect for Bryson DeChambeau.

The fact he can sit a metre from Paul Casey – who had competed in 48 majors, won on the PGA Tour and played on three Ryder Cup teams before DeChambeau turned pro, a man who has been higher on the OWGR than Bryson ever has – and still look the more accomplished is quite a thing.

DeChambeau has star power and LIV is letting it shine.

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It has also provided him with the latitude to explore other interests and opportunities. From his wildly successful YouTube channel – he is now the seventh most-followed golfer on the platform – to building a business via the Crushers franchise, he seems curiously content.

“Our mission over the next few years is going to grow and develop in accordance with the team’s vision, everybody’s vision, what we all have for the future and what we’re trying to see for the game of golf, how we’re able to expand the game of golf globally,” he said.

“We’ve got some really interesting things going on in the Philippines. We’re trying to work on something in India, working on something in Dallas, and we want a couple other sites to be able to grow the game from the grassroots.

“That’s something we’re incredibly interested in, we’re all focused on and have that vision to accomplish something that hasn’t been done in the game yet.”

He’s still a restless extrovert. He operates at 100mph when 30 would do. He’s the eccentric’s eccentric, a game show host in chinos and a polo.

He’s also box office, a vivacious, effervescent ringmaster who plays by instinct, gets it wrong, gets its right, misses cuts, shoots 58, and, most crucially of all, entertains. He is an unorthodox anti-hero, who completely and utterly understands the assignment even if he doesn’t, as Anirban Lahiri put it, understand himself.

This is Bryson DeChambeau’s world and we’re all just LIVing in it.

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Michael McEwan is the current PPA Scotland ‘Columnist of the Year’ and ‘Writer of the Year’

Michael McEwan is bunkered's Head of Content and has been part of the team since 2004. In that time, he has interviewed almost every major figure within the sport, from Jack Nicklaus, to Rory McIlroy, to Donald Trump. The host of the multi award-winning bunkered Podcast and a member of Balfron Golfing Society, Michael is the author of three books and is the 2023 PPA Scotland 'Writer of the Year' and 'Columnist of the Year'. Dislikes white belts, yellow balls and iron headcovers. Likes being drawn out of the media ballot to play Augusta National.

Head of Content