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Bryson DeChambeau has done a pretty good job overhauling his reputation with golf fans over the past few years after initially rubbing plenty of people the wrong way. However, some haters have come out of the woodwork over a video of a terse exchange he had with a spotter during The British Open.
It’s been eight years since Bryson DeChambeau got his first win on the PGA Tour before racking up four more victories during his breakout season in 2018, and it didn’t take very long for him to emerge as a fairly controversial figure in the world of golf.
The two-time U.S. Open winner garnered plenty of attention after bulking up during the pandemic in order to add some distance off the tee. That decision stemmed from an almost obsessively analytical approach to golf that managed to turn off some people who viewed him as a tryhard who positioned himself as a know-it-all, and the fact that he decided to abandon the short-lived physical experiment that didn’t translate to a ton of success only fueled the critics who fell in that camp.
Some fans also picked sides after he found himself engaged in a fairly high-profile feud with Brooks Koepka, and he predictably took plenty of heat after deciding to defect to LIV Golf in 2022.
He’s since mounted a pretty successful campaign to rehabilitate his image with the help of the YouTube channel that allows him to showcase his personality, and plenty of former detractors have slowly but surely come around after realizing the hate they directed his way may not have been entirely justified.
With that said, there are still more than a few people who will pounce on any and every opportunity to jump down his throat, and a video that was captured at The British Open is the latest reminder of that reality.
A clip of Bryson DeChambeau having a terse exchange with a spotter at the British Open was greeted by some overblown backlash
DeChambeau got off to a very rough start at the 153rd edition of The Open Championship at Royal Portrush, as it seemed like there was a good chance he’d end up missing the cut after shooting a 78 during his opening round to end up at +7 heading into Friday.
However, he rallied with a 65 to earn the right to play the weekend and finished with a 68 and 64 that put him at -9 for the tournament—good enough for a tie for 10th and the $304,650 he ended up taking home.
DeChambeau had seven birdies over the course of his final 18 holes and never carded anything worse than a par on Sunday. However, he did end up in a little bit of trouble when his 315-yard drive off the tee on the 11th hole ended up in the rough to the right of the fairway before it was tracked down by a spotter.
We were treated to a clip of what unfolded when he made his way to the ball courtesy of a TikTok user who uploaded a video where DeChambeau told the spotter who was standing directly in his line to the green “You can move out of the way” with a little bit of attitude in his voice.
I can’t say I’m intimately familiar with the protocol you’re expected to follow as a ball spotter (The Open doesn’t have any publicly accessible guide on its website), but based on DeChambeau’s reaction, it would seem they usually position themselves to the side or behind the ball as opposed to in front of it.
Could he have been a little more cordial while addressing the guy? Probably, but I can’t necessarily say I blame him for wanting to address his shot as quickly as possible on the final day of a major tournament as opposed to being overly concerned with his tone.
However, that didn’t stop people from flocking to the comments for some largely unnecessary Discourse about how that brief exchange purportedly offers a window into DeChambeau’s character, with one person asserting, “Bryson is the fakest most disingenuous person of all time” and another claiming, “I knew his social media personality is all for show. 100% believe so.”
That’s just a small smattering of statements that echoed a similar sentiment, although DeChambeau does now have a golden opportunity to track down some of those haters for some YouTube content.