{"id":811240,"date":"2026-07-19T01:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T01:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/811240\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T01:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T01:40:10","slug":"mcilroy-blasts-dechambeaus-open-championship-antics-in-rare-golf-rivalry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/811240\/","title":{"rendered":"McIlroy blasts DeChambeau’s Open Championship antics in rare golf rivalry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rory McIlroy made it known that he wasn\u2019t a fan of Bryson DeChambeau or his act.\u00a0<\/p>\n

About 24 hours after DeChambeau suffered a rules violation after he was seen trampling the grass around his ball on the par-4 5th on Friday and, in essence, improved his lie, McIlroy said his piece.\u00a0<\/p>\n

DeChambeau was given a two-shot penalty, and McIlroy believes that, while the back-and-forth with the R&A officials was going on, the rest of the tournament was unfairly at his mercy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cLate night for everyone. Yeah, look, I won’t pretend to be up here and defend Bryson. I’m not particularly fond of him. I think a lot of it’s performative. I think a lot of it’s for attention,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cTo hold the tournament hostage like that, and to have all of us, players, volunteers, everyone waiting on him to depart, I didn’t feel like it was a great look.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there’s no doubt that he improved the line of his backswing. Again, it’s like, whether it was careless or whether it was intentional, I don’t think it matters. Hopefully it was careless, but I think the two-shot penalty was justified for sure.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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DeChambeau is one of the most complicated figures in sport. He\u00a0is\u00a0performative, but that\u2019s part of his mass appeal \u2014 to the tune of 4.5 million followers on Instagram and nearly 3 million on YouTube. He\u2019s also an awfully good golfer, with two majors to his credit already. DeChambeau’s firmly in the mix at The Open Championship, just four shots back of the 54-hole lead held by Sam Burns, whom he played with Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also the only golfer who is inside the top 10 on the leaderboard who has won a major before.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The main character energy from DeChambeau, however, is many things: equal parts unconventional and talented. Irritable and brilliant. He\u2019s more of a scientist than an artist, too, and coming into The Open, he had missed all three cuts at the majors so far in 2026. We don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on in DeChambeau\u2019s head at Royal Birkdale, as he refused to speak to the on-site media again Saturday after he shot a 1-under 69.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Per\u00a0Today\u2019s Golfer, DeChambeau was seen in an \u201canimated\u201d discussion with R&A chief executive Mark Darbon and was, according to reports, requesting his second-round scorecard. Presumably for content of his own. That request was denied.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So we hear from McIlroy instead, amongst others.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some came to DeChambeau\u2019s defence like Max Homa (\u201cI’ve known Bryson for a very long time, and he’s an interesting human at times, but I know he would never cheat the game of golf. I don’t really love how it happened\u201d) while others held judgement for down the road, like Scottie Scheffler (\u201cI was playing with him yesterday. I don’t really have a ton to say on it. Actually, I do have a ton to say. I haven’t decided exactly what I want to say publicly yet.\u201d)<\/p>\n

This is rare in golf \u2014 a real rivalry. When was the last time you heard a golfer \u2014 or any athlete, really \u2014 come right out and specifically say he was not a fan of another in his sport? On the record and with the knowledge that it would be clipped and shared widely?\u00a0<\/p>\n

McIlroy said there was \u201cobvious evidence\u201d that DeChambeau deserved what he received from the R&A.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It may have been a pseudo war-of-words (one-sided in this case, at least), but on the scoreboard DeChambeau has the advantage \u2014 sitting four shots up on McIlroy, who is at 2 under heading into Sunday\u2019s finale.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They\u2019re all chasing Burns, however, whose 62-65 over Friday and Saturday mark the lowest total across any two rounds in men\u2019s major history.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Burns has a delightful story of his own heading into the week \u2014 with his wife due Tuesday of The Open, it was actually more than likely he would have not even been playing this week. Alas, his wife gave birth to a daughter, Belle, on July 3 \u2014 almost two weeks early. Burns played with DeChambeau on Saturday and said he was impressed with how much \u201cgrit\u201d he showed after all that unfolded with the sun going down Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Winning takes care of plenty \u2014 the homesickness of a new father, in the case of Burns, and the anger of an over-acting global star in the case of DeChambeau.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s much golf left to be played still on Sunday at The Open, and a champion will be crowned.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the overarching saga that will define this particular Open Championship will continue for some time.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy made it known that he wasn\u2019t a fan of Bryson DeChambeau or his act.\u00a0 About 24…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":811241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-811240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}