Bryson DeChambeau opened the PGA Championship with a 6-over 76, leaving the two-time U.S. Open champion in danger of missing another major cut.
Bryson DeChambeau’s PGA Championship started with the kind of round that can bury a player before the weekend even arrives.
The former SMU Mustangs standout shot a 6-over 76 in Thursday’s opening round at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pa., leaving him near the bottom of the leaderboard and in serious danger of missing the cut.
Since winning the 2024 U.S. Open, DeChambeau has played six major championships and produced a wildly uneven run: three top-10 finishes and three missed cuts.
That boom-or-bust pattern showed up again Thursday.
When DeChambeau is locked in, he can overwhelm golf courses with power and confidence. But when the pieces don’t fit, things can unravel quickly.
His first round at the PGA Championship featured the same issues that have hurt him in recent majors: loose iron distance control, shaky short-game execution, bunker and chipping problems and a putter that didn’t save him often enough.
The wind only made things worse. DeChambeau has long leaned on exact numbers and detailed calculations, but gusty conditions can complicate that approach.
During practice, he tested similar shots from the same yardage and watched the ball react in several different ways. That uncertainty seemed to follow him into tournament play.
The round really started to slip late. After already making five bogeys, DeChambeau reached the long par-3 seventh hole, his 16th of the day after starting on the back nine.
Following a long wait on the tee, he missed short and right, then blasted a chip over the green. His next chip came up short and rolled back toward him, leading to a damaging double bogey.
That sequence captured the frustration of the day. DeChambeau showed visible emotion throughout the round, reacting to missed shots, poor lies and mistakes that kept piling up.
He’s always been an emotional competitor, and when momentum turns against him, it can become a fight to stop the spiral.
He did close with something positive, reaching the par-5 ninth in two and making birdie for his first of the round. But one clean final hole wasn’t enough to erase the damage.
After signing his card, DeChambeau went straight to the range, searching for answers with the same iron that had betrayed him late in the round.
Now he’ll need a major Friday response just to play the weekend.
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