SOUTHPORT, England \u2014 Coming off three missed cuts at the majors this year and with Sir Nick Faldo criticizing his approach to links golf, Bryson DeChambeau shot into contention after an opening-round 67 at the Open Championship.<\/p>\n
The two-time U.S. Open champion did not make the weekend at the Masters despite winning three times on LIV leading into Augusta National, and he exited early from the PGA and U.S. Open.<\/p>\n
DeChambeau arrived at Royal Birkdale with just two career top-10s at the Open in eight starts, providing the room for three-time Open champion Faldo to lash out at DeChambeau for his handling of links golf on the eve of the 2026\u2019s final men\u2019s major.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d say it to his face: DeChambeau has zero clue of strategy,\u201d Faldo said on the Sky Sports Golf podcast. \u201cHe said last year, \u2018I\u2019m going to go out and attack the links.\u2019 Well, I\u2019ve never attacked a links. You thread it, don\u2019t you? You feed it down the fairway. You look at humps and bumps. If I send it over and feed it, it nudges back into play.\u201d<\/p>\n
DeChambeau opened his Thursday round, paired with Scottie Scheffler and fellow LIV golfer Tyrrell Hatton, with a pair of birdies, before a third came at the short par-4 10th. Despite a surprising dropped shot at the par-5 14th, DeChambeau made consecutive birdies at the 16th and 17th to share the lead at four under. Another bogey at the 18th, after going long with his approach and failing to made a seven-foot par saver, still left DeChambeau a three-under 67 and just one shot behind the clubhouse lead held by England\u2019s Dan Brown and South Korea\u2019s Sungjae Im (66).<\/p>\n
After his round, DeChambeau declined to talk to the TV broadcasters or the media, but spoke to R&A radio.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, definitely satisfying,\u201d DeChambeau said. \u201cAny time you get off to a great start, it\u2019s awesome, but there\u2019s three more days, dude. There\u2019s still a lot of golf to be played. But ultimately from my perspective I was really excited about the way I played.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s some driving holes out there I\u2019ve got to work on. Other than that, I played really well. Made some good putts and three-putted once, but that\u2019s life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about his game plan for the firm, fast par-70 at Royal Birkdale, DeChambeau referenced strategy three times, perhaps no coincidence given Faldo\u2019s early week comments.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you\u2019ve got to be a lot more strategic out on the golf course,\u201d DeChambeau said. \u201cI feel like I did a really good job today of being incredibly strategic and focused super hard on placing it in the right places. Besides 18, I placed the ball in some good areas. I just need to hit more fairways. Other than that, I feel like my strategy was nice today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Playing partners Scottie Scheffler (68) and Tyrrell Hatton (69) were also under par on Day 1. Hatton was asked whether it was surprising to see DeChambeau contending after round one at the Open.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, it shouldn\u2019t surprise anyone; he\u2019s an amazing player,\u201d Hatton said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, he flights the ball great. His ball flight today was really good. He didn\u2019t really hit many bad shots. As I said, he\u2019s an amazing player, and it shouldn\u2019t really surprise anyone that he\u2019s doing well.\u201d<\/p>\n
DeChambeau was also debuting new, 3D-printed irons at Royal Birkdale.<\/p>\n
\u201cA single iron takes about an hour to 3D print, DeChambeau said on the eve of the tournament during an interview on The Open\u2019s Live at the Range stream. \u201cA full set\u2019s about nine hours, so it\u2019s not that bad. Machining and cooling and all the different processes that we do, it\u2019s just a couple days\u2019 work, and I can have a club from CAD (computer-aided design) capability to a fully-printed set within four or five days.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
Is it the British Open or the Open Championship?\u202fThe name of the final men\u2019s major of the golf season is a subject of continued discussion. The event\u2019s official name,\u202fas explained in this op-ed by former R&A chairman Ian Pattinson, is the Open Championship. But since many United States golf fans continue to refer to it as the British Open, and search news around the event accordingly, Golf Digest continues to utilize both names in its coverage.<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
MORE GOLF DIGEST BRITISH OPEN COVERAGE <\/p>\n
British Open 101: Answering all your frequently asked questions<\/p>\n
How to watch the British Open on TV and streaming<\/p>\n
Tee times for the first and second rounds<\/p>\n
Video: The craziest 29 minutes in British Open history<\/p>\n
Power Rankings: Every player in the field at Royal Birkdale<\/p>\n
The Open keeps growing, but does it come at the price of tradition?<\/p>\n
Video: Every hole at Royal Birkdale<\/p>\n
Royal Birkdale demands these five shots. Here\u2019s how pros practice them<\/p>\n
How does a golf course earn \u2018Royal\u2019 status?<\/p>\n
The best British Opens, ranked<\/p>\n
The decision every pro face as they stand on the tee at Birkdale<\/p>\n
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SOUTHPORT, England \u2014 Coming off three missed cuts at the majors this year and with Sir Nick Faldo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":804656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[4225,64,63,755,138747,85],"class_list":["post-804655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-article","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-golf-digest","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/804656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}