Bryson DeChambeau looked to be one of the few genuine threats to Scottie Scheffler heading into the final round of the 2025 PGA Championship. But the flaws in his game caused him to fall down the leaderboard at Quail Hollow Club, and the two-time U.S. Open champ seems not to be aware of them.
“I'm baffled right now,” DeChambeau said to the media after his final round. “Just felt like things just didn't go my way this week. Drove it really well. I drove it as good as I can, as of right now, I gave myself a good chance. I just felt like a couple breaks went a different way.”
While that may be true, those who are more expert than most of us point out that there are several issues with the current state of DeChambeau’s game.
Yes, DeChambeau hits all his clubs prodigious lengths. However, as Paul McGinley pointed out in the Live From the PGA Championship program on Golf Channel, his distance control with his irons is not up to the standards of players like Scheffler and others.
Add that to the fact that Quail Hollow’s greens repelled golf balls with false fronts and run-offs at the rear, and the course became a serious challenge for DeChambeau.
It started on Sunday at the first hole. DeChambeau was over the first green in intermediate rough with his second shot, a precursor of things to come.
It was often his skilled pitching and chipping ability that kept him in the tournament, as it did on the fourth, where he hit a 9-iron to the 192-yard par-3 and came up short, below the front fringe, between two bunkers. His chip shot left him with a putt of just over two feet, which was a remarkable recovery and a great par.
Sometimes his putting was spot-on, and other times, it was disappointing, as on the fifth, when he had a five-footer for par and ended up rolling it nine feet beyond the hole.
His skill overcame his tendency to make errors on the par-5 seventh, where he made birdie after his second shot landed in a greenside bunker.
At the ninth, a birdie put him in a third-place tie at 6-under, which was helpful as Scheffler went on to make a bogey on that hole. At that point, DeChambeau was just three shots back of the lead, tied with Jhonattan Vegas and J.T. Poston, and one behind Jon Rahm and Alex Noren, who were 7-under.
The next hole was another par-5, but DeChambeau’s second shot was slightly right of the mark and landed just below the green on the fringe. Perhaps it was his intention. However, his chip shot ran over the green to the left fringe. He then misread the first putt, and instead of making birdie, he made par.
As DeChambeau played the 11th, CBS announcers began to notice. Ian Baker-Finch said, "From where DeChambeau was driving it, he should have more birdie opportunities.”
By the 12th, it warranted a comment from Trevor Immelman, who noted that DeChambeau’s putting was “off today.” Jim Nantz then suggested that DeChambeau was “looking nervy” on the greens.
“I played solid,” DeChambeau insisted in a media interview after his round. “Not making birdie on 10, 11, or 12 really stung, and three-putting -- not 3-putting, not getting up-and-down. I hit a great shot on 13.”
The tee ball on the par-3 13th may have been a “great shot,” but the result was too long. His distance control issues with his irons surfaced again, as his 8-iron went over the green. Then, to compound things, he missed a four-and-a-half footer for par.
“What I really think needs to happen, being pretty transparent here, is just get a golf ball that flies a little straighter,” he explained. “Everybody talks about how straight the golf ball flies. Well, upwards of 190 (MPH ball speed) like Rory and myself, it's actually quite difficult to control the golf ball.”
Bryson said he was looking at how that problem can be fixed.
“I'm looking at ways of how to rectify that so that my wedges can be even tighter so it can fly straighter,” he said.
Still, DeChambeau kept the on-course fight going. He proceeded to make birdie at the short par-4 14th by hitting a 3-wood to the right of the green and chipping up to two feet. He followed it up with another birdie at the par-5 15th to get to 7-under.
Unfortunately, Scheffler had started to eliminate his case of the lefts that he had on the front nine, and he ultimately pulled away with birdies of his own at 14 and 15 to climb to 12-under.
There were simply not enough holes remaining for DeChambeau to make up the difference unless Scheffler found the water at each of the final three holes and missed several putts, which he obviously did not do.
According to the Golf Channel Live From commentators, the structure of the LIV Golf format, where DeChambeau has been playing for the last three years, is part of the issue with his game.
There are only 54 holes played each tournament, and with the team structure factored in as well, LIV players may not rely on themselves as much as they would on the PGA Tour. Also, the players have been paid enormous sums just for showing up, not based on their play.
The PGA Tour, both McGinley and Chamblee said, has more fierce competition and requires better play.
How does DeChambeau feel about it?
“There were times where I feel like I pressed,” he said. “Green Mile did it to me yesterday and kind of did it to me again today, and that's golf, man. I've got to be more precise and fix what I can fix to make myself more consistent.”
He has time to sharpen up some of his game’s deficiencies for the next major, the U.S. Open at Oakmont, where he'll tee it up as the defending champion.
Perhaps rather than creating a new ball, the real answer is to spend more time practicing accuracy with his irons. That’s something DeChambeau can do between now and the second week of June.