By Dana O’Neil, CNN
Newtown Square, Pennsylvania (CNN) — After signing his scorecard to make official a round of golf he’d largely like to forget, Bryson DeChambeau cut through the player’s parking lot and kept going, directly to the driving range.
He plopped two buckets next to him and started swinging, stopping only to either review video of his stroke recorded on an iPhone or to have his people shoo away two cameramen who set up behind him.
When he emptied those buckets, DeChambeau cued up a few more, as if somewhere in the bottom he might find his game. It has clearly abandoned him.
DeChambeau shot a brutal 6-over 76 in the first round of the PGA Championship, putting him at a robust plus-17 over his last three major opening rounds.
So sideways did things for DeChambeau that one of his errant shots wound up on a staircase, parking itself directly beneath a tent that read, “Level Blue On the Fairway.” The ball clearly did not appreciate the irony. In a true twist, that horrible lie ended up being one of DeChambeau’s best moments; he wound up saving par.
DeChambeau splayed drives right, and putts short, long, wide and all about the tricky Aronimink greens. On the lengthy par-3 eighth, he blooped his second shot high enough to draw rain, flying it clear over the green, needing only a loop-di-loop to complete the cartoonish effect. He wound up with a double bogey.
As the round progressed, DeChambeau’s body language went from purposeful to puzzled to downright peeved, which is something of a typical descent for DeChambeau. He jammed his club into the green at one point, and on more than one occasion, he returned to the scene of whatever crime last committed – bad drive or bad putt – and took a ghost swing, as if he was both pondering what the hell just happened and dreaming of a mulligan.
On the seventh, near the end of his round, having teed off to begin the day on 10, he spent what felt like an eternity waiting for the green to clear. While Rickie Fowler and Ludvig Åberg chatted with their caddies, DeChambeau took a bunch of practice swings and chomped on a piece of beef jerky with more aggression than even chewy meat merits.
DeChambeau’s struggles come at an especially critical juncture for the two-time US Open winner and the rest of his LIV Golf exiles. Their side hustle is sputtering toward some sort of finish line, the Saudi’s Public Investment Fund having pulled the cashflow that made LIV so appealing in the first place.
DeChambeau’s contract is up at the end of this year, but that doesn’t mean he gets to head back to the PGA Tour. He was not only one of the rebels to break away; he also joined in a lawsuit alleging the PGA used a monopoly to unfairly penalize players who joined LIV.
A return will require meetings, penalties and probably a lot of kumbaya sessions. The Tour recently announced it will loosen its otherwise Draconian social media policies. DeChambeau is a proud YouTuber and has even threatened to take his ball and go play all by himself on the platform if a stalemate persists.
There remains a chasm to cross and largely what sits in the middle, between a reconciliation and a permanent divorce, is what always gets in the middle of any messy relationship: Ego. Not only does either side not want to accept blame, but also neither wants to admit they need the other.
To be fair, the PGA has hardly crumbled amid the breakaway to LIV. The 2025 season was the most-watched on CBS since 2018. Sunday viewership for top Tour events hovered around