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Reigning champion Bryson DeChambeau melts down in 'dumb' moment as US Open baffles world's top players

June 12, 2025 - 11.20pm

Reigning champion Bryson DeChambeau certainly had an interesting opening round at the US Open.

After winning last year's major in a thriller as Rory McIlroy imploded, this time it was DeChambeau's turn to melt down - albeit to a lesser extent - as he carded a 3-over 73 to start his championship defence.

He seemed to lose his head on the par-5 fourth hole with a bizarre mistake even he labelled "dumb".

After sending his drive into the rough, he hacked his ball back onto the fairway but it landed on a patch where spectators had walked.

He was able to take relief, given the lie, but picked his ball up without he or his caddie marking where it had been. When DeChambeau couldn't find a more suitable lie, he wanted to put his ball back where it was, but a rules official intervened.

She pointed to the area where DeChambeau was allowed to take a free drop, but again the LIV Golf superstar made a head-scratching error.

Bryson DeChambeau had to be told off by a rules official at the US Open. Twitter

Instead of dropping the ball, he placed it on the fairway. The rules official quickly intervened and told him he would have to drop it, or risk incurring a one-shot penalty.

DeChambeau could be heard calling his mistake "dumb" before he eventually took the shot and carded a par for the hole.

He melted down again on the 12th hole - also a par 5 - when he hit the green in two but then somehow sent his third shot sailing back over the green, before duffing two shots in the rough.

He eventually putted in to bogey the hole.

"Yeah, for whatever reason, just couldn't get the speed of the greens dialled in. I was in the collar a couple times, just three-putted on those holes, and three three-putts and doing whatever happened on 12, then No.9, three-putting there, too," DeChambeau later said.

"I mean, it could have been a couple-under round pretty easily."

The US Open is notoriously known as the toughest scoring major in golf, and Oakmont is as tough a course to shoot low as any on tour.

At one stage Gary Woodland, the 2019 US Open champion, waved the rules official over. Certainly, a ball buried that deep in the rough had to have embedded into the soft turf below when his off-line drive on the 12th hole landed with a thunk.

No such luck, the official told him. The rough at Oakmont is just deep — and thick and hard to escape. Instead of taking a free drop for an embedded ball, Woodland had to replace it where he found it, get out his wedge, take a hack and pray.

That resulted in Woodland's first blemish in a back nine of 6-over 41. It turned a promising round that began with three birdies into a 3-over 73 slog.

Woodland's was one of dozens of tales from the rough — gnarly, thick and sometimes downright impossible — that make an Open at Oakmont as tough as they come.

Bryson DeChambeau reacts to his tee shot on the sixth hole. AP

"Even for a guy like me, I can't get out of it some of the times, depending on the lie," said defending champion DeChambeau, who makes a living on overpowering golf courses and gouging out of the thick stuff. "It was tough. It was a brutal test of golf."

Punishing the best in the world is exactly how the superintendents at what might be America's toughest golf course planned it.

Maybe JJ Spaun figured it out the best.

With the dew still slickening the grass for his early tee time, Spaun chipped in from a gnarly lie on his first hole to open the Open with a birdie. He only hit eight of 14 fairways and 12 of 18 greens, but that was good enough for a 4-under 66, which sent him home with the lead and a chance to watch the afternoon players suffer.

"I like feeling uncomfortable," Spaun said.

He came to the right place this week.

- with AP