Rory McIlroy-Bryson DeChambeau feud has ignited the Ryder Cup

Rory McIlroy (foreground) and Bryson DeChambeau represent very different characters on and off the course – Reuters/Brian Snyder

It will have to go some to top the infamous ‘dust-up in the car park’ at Marco Simone in 2023, but the ingredients for this autumn’s Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black are getting spicier all the time. And in Rory McIlroy vs Bryson DeChambeau, we may just have the main course.

McIlroy’s epic Masters win on Sunday evening provided a feel-good story for the ages and everyone afterwards lined up to sing the Northern Irishman’s praises. Almost everyone, anyway. DeChambeau, when asked how his final-round playing partner was faring after one of the most nerve-shredding rounds in golfing history, provided an unexpectedly spiky response.

“No idea,” the American shrugged. “Didn’t talk to me once all day.”

Asked to expand on the atmosphere, DeChambeau added: “Electric. I loved it. But he [McIlroy] was just like… just being focused, I guess. It’s not me, though.”

Understandably, his comments triggered plenty of headlines in Monday’s post-mortem.

In DeChambeau’s defence, he was speaking right after his round, before McIlroy had actually won the tournament in a sudden-death play-off with Justin Rose, and while the American was presumably still processing his own three-over-par 75, which left him in a tie for fifth.

And DeChambeau did later offer his congratulations to McIlroy, posting on social media to describe the Northern Irishman’s career grand slam as an “incredible achievement”, and adding: “He deserved to get this one”. But by then the damage was done.

The truth is, the man from Modesto, California was clearly making a point on Sunday night. DeChambeau could easily have said that McIlroy was trying to stay in the zone, or simply preferred not to make chit-chat out on course. But he chose to make a thing of it.

The one comment he made about McIlroy’s performance concerned the 35-year-old’s double bogey at 13, when the Northern Irishman pitched into Rae’s Creek.

“I wanted to cry for him,” DeChambeau said. “I mean, as a professional, you just know to hit it in the middle of the green, and I can’t believe he went for it, or must have just flared it. But I’ve hit bad shots in my career, too, and it happens. When you’re trying to win a major championship, especially out here, Sunday of Augusta at the Masters, you have to just do it and get the job done and do it right. There were times where it looked like he had full control and at times where it’s like, what’s going on. Kind of looked like one of my rounds, actually.”

Hardly Joe Frazier versus Muhammad Ali, but the growing feeling within the game is that – despite their denials – there is tension between the respective faces of the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, who represent very different characters on and off the course. Perhaps that will dissipate now that McIlroy’s major curse has been lifted and he can relax a bit. Perhaps not.

The tension clearly stems from their clash at Pinehurst at the US Open last summer. McIlory’s dramatic collapse in the final holes opened the door for DeChambeau to claim the title for the second time, and the Northern Irishman’s swift exit afterwards, without speaking to the media or stopping to congratulate DeChambeau, clearly shocked the latter.

Like DeChambeau after this Masters, McIlroy did eventually get around to praising his rival, describing DeChambeau on social media the following day as “a worthy champion” and saying he was “exactly what professional golf needs right now”.

But the relationship between the two is said to have soured when they met in Las Vegas in December for the Showdown – a match pitting the PGA Tour against LIV Golf as McIlroy teamed up with Scottie Scheffler to take on DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka.

In the build-up to the Shadow Creek Golf Club contest, the two shared a joke about their rivalry. “I’d like to go up against Bryson and try to get him back for what he did to me at the US Open,” McIlroy said while on the range alongside DeChambeau.

“Well, to be fair, you kinda did it to yourself,” DeChambeau quipped, a retort that stung McIlroy and one that is understood to have stuck with him, having been deemed cruel and unnecessary. It did not take long on Monday for video clips of that particular exchange to be shared online.

Whether McIlroy was truly irked or not, whether he cannot stand DeChambeau or is simply indifferent, it seems he decided not to have any dealings with DeChambeau at all during Sunday’s final round. It is not the first time that such tactics have been deployed in professional golf. American Tony Finau speaks of his experience when playing alongside Tiger Woods at the 2019 Masters. “We finally get to the 7th hole, and Tiger and I were walking next to each other off the tee, and it was kind of awkward,” Finau says. “I was like, how come he’s not talking to me? Maybe I should say something to him. So I’m like, ‘Hey Tiger, how are the kids?’ And he’s like, ‘Oh, they are doing fine.’ And he just laser-eyed straight down the fairway and just kept on walking. From that point on I said, well, I know where his attitude is at and I’m not talking to him the rest of the day. The next time we spoke was when I congratulated him on winning the green jacket. He pretty much told me [during the round] with a straight face, ‘Leave me alone.’”

DeChambeau, by contrast, appeared to be trying to get inside his rival’s head before the round had even begun. It escaped no one’s attention that the American started his driving range practice in one of the far berths, only to edge his way slowly towards where McIlroy was hitting from, to the point that they were separated by just three empty bays when nearly all other players had left to start their rounds.

It is just the kind of thing that, if it was intentional, would be likely to annoy McIlroy, a stickler for etiquette. Two years ago, at the Ryder Cup, the Northern Irishman got so fired up by the actions of Team USA caddie Joe LaCava, who he felt had “crossed a line” by celebrating in his face while he was lining up a putt, that he had to be restrained by his friend Shane Lowry. Perhaps this year he will go Bison-hunting at Bethpage Black.

By Telegraph Sport

Padraig Harrington has hit out at Bryson DeChambeau’s “bizarre” tactics during the final round of the Masters and claimed that his “ego” saw him “chase something that he isn’t”.

DeChambeau has accused Rory McIlroy of not speaking to him throughout Sunday’s final round at Augusta, where the Northern Irishman finally clinched his first Masters title and ended his 11-year major drought via a play-off victory over Justin Rose.

Playing alongside McIlroy, DeChambeau suffered a complete collapse despite taking the lead on the first hole, with a three-over-par round of 73 dropping him down the leaderboard to a tie for fifth.

Having beaten McIlroy to last year’s US Open at Pinehurst, many expected a duel at the top between the two rivals. But three-time major champion Harrington believes DeChambeau’s “ego” got the better of him after trying to prove he is a better golfer than just a big hitter.

Bryson DeChambeau’s bid for a first Green Jacket faltered in the final round – Getty Images/Michael Reaves

“Bryson’s change of personality [was] the oddest thing ever [by] laying up,” Harrington told the Irish Independent’s Indo Sport podcast (listen in full below). “He just wasn’t there for the rest of the day.

“He didn’t want to be the player that he was at Pinehurst. He wanted to be somebody else, he wanted to be a clever golfer. He didn’t want to be known as the hit’n’gouge guy from the US Open at Winged Foot [in 2020].

“It was an incredible change of personality, he was out of it. And as well as Bryson coming up with this afterwards, ‘he didn’t talk to me’, who does Bryson want to be? Could you imagine going out on the football pitch and saying the guy marking me wasn’t chatting to me, he wasn’t very nice to me?

“I talked the ear off Charlie Wi over the last 36 holes because it suited me, but I didn’t say a word to Sergio Garcia because it suited me to talk but I ain’t trying to relax the other guy. That was a weird one, clearly he was off his game but his ego, he was chasing something that he isn’t.”

Harrington was perplexed by DeChambeau’s change of tactics in trying to beat McIlroy to what would also have been his first Green Jacket.

“What was he thinking on the third hole?” he added when speaking to RTÉ. “Bryson has made his game by being a long hitter. He stands up on the third hole with a one-shot lead, possibly can drive the green, he lays up, makes bogey; Rory drives it up to near the edge of the green and makes his birdie.

“It was the most bizarre change of personality I’ve ever seen in the game of golf right there in that moment… it was beyond bizarre what he did off the tee, for him in his personality. He didn’t hit a shot afterwards.

“He has different skills but his ego has gone down this road of being a long hitter and he had a chance right there on the third hole, stand up there, burst one down there, it’s a big enough area and he just gave all the momentum back to Rory.

“It was just a change of attitude by him. Not being yourself can be a very dangerous thing in golf.”

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Rory McIlroy-Bryson DeChambeau feud has ignited the Ryder Cup

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