Bryson DeChambeau struggles once again at WGC

Another week on the PGA Tour, and another rough first round for Bryson DeChambeau, this time, at the WGC Workday at Concession. At least he wasn’t the only star that had a rough first round.

I’m not trying to act like this is a big trend that we have seen from Bryson DeChambeau. It is, however, back-to-back weeks that we have seen Beefy Bryson shoot 75 or worse to start a tournament, which has surely wrinkled his feathers.

Through the first 16 rounds he played during this golf season, he had shot 70 or better in 13 of them. He had a 71 at the Shriners, and then a 73 and a 74 at the Masters. Maybe don’t anger the Augusta golf gods before playing there next time.

Then, last week at the Genesis, Bryson went out and shot a 75, easily his worst round of the year. Just one week later, Bryson DeChambeau shot a miserable 77.

Things weren’t all bad for him Thursday, as he actually carded four birdies during his round. In a way, that actually makes the 77 seem worse. It isn’t that he shot +5 over 18 holes… it’s that he shot +9 over 14 of them.

He started on the front nine, and instantly fell down the leaderboard with a bogey on the first. He would bounce back and forth throughout the front nine, capped off by nearly making his approach on the ninth from 162 yards out, settling it in at around a foot and a half, making the birdie.

The back nine was not so nice to Bryson. Back-to-back bogeys to start off, highlighted (or better, lowlighted) by a three-putt on the 10th.

He yanked his tee shot on the par-3 14th a good 40 yards left and deep of the hole, and scrambled to make just a bogey there, and followed it with a par at 15. All things considered up to this point, +3 through 15 wasn’t terrible, and things could’ve been much worse.

Did I say could’ve? I meant that they were about to get much worse for Bryson DeChambeau.

He would head to the par-4 16th, a hole that was tempting to no one on the course, except for Bryson. Needing 330 yards of carry to get to the greenside bunker, he would instead hit it 329 yards and find the water next to the said bunker.

He then pushed his next tee shot into the junk and wasn’t able to control it enough to get it onto the green from 110 yards out, finishing short and right of the green. One chip and a two-putt from 14 feet later, and he would card a triple-bogey seven on the hole, dropping to +6.

He would redeem himself a bit on the next hole, nearly chipping in for eagle from about 30 yards out, and tapping in for his fourth birdie of the day, getting him to his finishing score of +5.

It’s a no-cut week, so he will have plenty of time to make up ground and claw his way up the leaderboard. Stay tuned in the second round to see if Bryson can tame the course, or if he continues to be reminded that golf, by nature, is something uncontrollable.