TROON, Scotland — There are umpteen ways in which Bryson DeChambeau has outmaneuvered his peers, not least in building the game’s most individualistic and powerful swing, and in tackling age-old equipment quandries with solutions that are as innovative as they are effective. He’s proven himself a thoroughly modern problem solver, but there’s one glaring Achilles that lurks near the surface, and which is also a decidedly modern trait.
DeChambeau desperately needs to be liked. Many people do, to be fair, moreso in a social media age when clicks on the ‘like’ button and reposts often impact self-worth. But it’s noteworthy to see a desire so obvious in a professional athlete, and potentially compromising in a man who is indisputably the most engaging figure in his sport.
On Tuesday at Royal Troon, DeChambeau was asked if the public perception of him has altered over the past year. “I think I’ve always been who I’ve been,” he said, before quickly contradicting himself. “I’ve definitely matured a lot. It’s been a growing process for me over the course of time. YouTube has massively helped, I can tell you that, being able to just release the emotions in the way that I know I can. When I was a kid, I was super emotional obviously, but I got frustrated on the golf course, I got really excited on the golf course.”
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DeChambeau says he was urged to suppress that emotion when he reached the PGA Tour, which has always prized conformity. “I don’t want to be someone that I’m not. Just really defining that and refining that to a place where I am today has been a lot of work in progress,” he explained. “It’s just taken time for me to have a better, bigger perspective on life and also having a platform where I can showcase that and refine it to a really cool, cool level and give people some great entertainment.”
Those words suggest that DeChambeau sees personality and platform as inseparable, that he found a safe space to be his authentic self via highly curated social media content. Yet the harsh reality of being in the public eye is that the message can’t always be controlled, a reminder delivered last week when Golfweek’s report on an acrimonious split with his former coach, Mike Schy, pierced the sterilized world he has constructed and stocked with paid staff and sycophants. “Look, it’s an unfortunate situation. I’ve loved that man for all of my life, and it’s a private matter that went public, unfortunately,” he said. “We tried to figure it out and make it make sense for everyone, and it just didn’t come out that way.”
DeChambeau’s play in the majors this year—a win at the U.S. Open, a near-win at the PGA Championship and a T-6 at the Masters—reminded fans of just why they were engaged by him before he went to LIV. Of course, engagement is a double-edged sword. There’s plenty of love—from fans, and often a fawning media corp—but also hate. The face-to-face world is mostly love, whereas hate dominates the social media sphere. The ability to tune out negativity is essential for public figures to retain some degree of sanity. DeChambeau clearly struggled with that, which is why going to LIV was probably good for him. He removed himself from the often toxic public square and found an audience, albeit minuscule, that was overwhelmingly welcoming of his presence.
DeChambeau admitted being criticized bothered him once, and in doing so inadvertently acknowledged it still matters. “You could say it’s bothered, but it was more of like, dang, I’m disappointed that people don’t see who I am,” he said. “It’s cool to get people to see who I am now. I’m just going to keep entertaining and showcasing to the fans what this great game is all about.”
DeChambeau gives the impression of a man who defines himself as a product—eager to change consumer sentiment and hopeful for kind reviews. It’s a smart way to sell, but less so a way to live. That perception of a manufactured man wasn’t helped when he offered this: “My social media team has been fantastic. They’re my best friends as well.”
For all his problem-solving skills, DeChambeau has yet to figure out the particular puzzle of links golf. If he does so this week and wins the 152nd Open, it would perhaps be the most impressive of his accomplishments. And yet he addressed that possibility in terms not of personal joy but of consumer reaction. “It would be awesome to let everybody touch the Claret Jug. That would be a dream come true,” he said.
DeChambeau is the most fascinating character in a game over-served with vanilla, and his re-emergence as a central character should be welcomed. There’s an obvious caveat though: he has performed well in the only three tournaments this year that exposed him to an audience of scale. That same audience he entertained at Augusta National, Valhalla and Pinehurst No. 2 will follow him to Royal Troon but hasn’t trailed him to LIV where viewing figures are so desultory they’re no longer made public. That helps explain the importance DeChambeau places on YouTube as a platform for keeping him relevant.
After this Open ends, a huge swathe of the fans who enthusiastically embraced him this spring and summer—many of them older and analog—will have to wait 260 days until the opening round of the Masters to get another fix. That’s a huge problem, both for the sport and for DeChambeau.