Bryson DeChambeau arrived at the US Open at Shinnecock Hills hoping to play the weekend in a major for the first time in 2026. The two-time US Open championbroke out Friday at the Masters to leave Augusta earlier and never had a chance at the PGA Championship at Aronimink.
Still, DeChambeau said he was confident about the state of his game as he arrived on Long Island. A few days later, DeChambeau was packing early after shooting 70-75 (five over) to miss the cut by one stroke.
DeChambeau did not speak to the assembled media after missing the weekend at Shinnecock. But a week later, the Crushers frontman and king of YouTube content posted a 34-minute video on his channel where he walked through every stroke of his two rounds at Shinnecock and explained why he hasn’t underperformed in the majors this year.
“I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now,” DeChambeu said to start the video. “I think it’s important to you guys, especially since I put myself out there in so many different ways, whether it’s entertaining on YouTube or playing professional golf, I want to give my best in every single event and the way I’ve been playing lately isn’t a true reflection. Unfortunately, I’ve been working extremely hard and sometimes it just doesn’t go my way, which is bad.”
Much of DeChambeau’s video is him explaining how the softness of the greens confused him, or how the wind didn’t hit some shots the way he wanted or how he misread some shots. He said “one of his favorite moments” of the tournament was the first drive he hit. his new prototype TaylorMade driver on the 12th hole. DeChambeau’s drive on the par 4 hit the fairway that intersects the hole and landed 427 yards short. He continued to make a bird.
When DeChambeau hits Shinnecock’s first hole (the tenth of his first round), he points out an issue he’s been working to understand. DeChambeau’s car found the fairway, but his approach landed to the left of his desired target. The shot landed high, but it was indicative of one thing DeChambeau has struggled with.
“That’s one of the things I have to figure out with my wedges,” DeChambeau said. “Sometimes they feel like it’s sliding on the face and maybe it’s a combination of the weight from the shaft with the head. So that’s what I’m working on figuring that out right now.”
DeChambeau played his first 17 holes in one under par and looked poised to get into the mix at another US Open.
But his issues began to surface on Friday. With the first round called due to darkness, DeChambeau had to tee off early Friday to finish the last hole of his first round and then return and play the second. As he warmed up on the beam, his swing showed. It was a problem he couldn’t solve—one he’d struggled with for some time.
“However, that’s kind of where it gets weird,” DeChambeau said Friday morning. “I go to the range on Friday, and all of a sudden, something feels a little off with my timing about how I’m bouncing off the ground to get the club out. You know, those little right-hand misses I was talking about became more pronounced. I couldn’t feel like the club was coming back naturally without effort. And yes, I’ve missed it pretty well.”
DeChambeau’s drive on the final hole of his first round flashed right and landed in the fescue. He eventually made a 26-foot putt for bogey to finish the first round at even par.
“I’m just in a weird place,” DeChambeau said after his first round. “So I had a little bit of a frustrating moment after that. But then I get myself together and go out and I still don’t get it. I still don’t know what’s going on with my golf swing. It feels a little weird. It’s just not coming back like it was the other day.”
DeChambeau’s tour quickly fell apart at the start of his second round. He opened with pars in one and two and then double-doubled to drop to five for the tournament.
“That was my tournament,” DeChambeau said. “This was literally the tournament. If I finish at one over, out of all of that, if I finish at one over, I’m seven back? Something like that. You know, there’s a lot of people who came in top 10 and (finished) top 10 or played well on the weekend. You just can’t do that. It was really unfortunate how I played, but that whole situation can’t happen. Do that in the majors You can’t make two doubles consecutively.
DeChambeau further discussed his swing issues, same thing the ones he seemed to be fighting on the range at the PGA Championship in Aronimink when he hit a bogey off the ninth tee.
“Slap cuts,” DeChambeau said. “I couldn’t time my golf swing for some reason and it wasn’t downloading.
The video ends with DeChambeau being asked a few off-screen questions, the same questions he would have faced from the media had he taken a few minutes to stop and answer them.
“Not good enough golf,” DeChambeau said of his three missed major cuts. “You could say it’s unlucky. You could say, bad judgment. You could say bad swings and all that. But ultimately it’s down to me making better decisions, having some things that work better for me, and me being more comfortable on the golf ball and not holding it and knowing why I’m making that mistake, knowing why I’m not working, working better. The combination so that it’s not so bad So even though I wasn’t doing my best, I was still number one and I was getting off the tee, which is crazy to work on.
Unlike Jon RahmDeChambeau has been instrumental in securing outside investment for LIV Golf. Asked if his focus on YouTube and LIV’s future was affecting his play in the majors, DeChambeau dismissed the idea, saying he just hasn’t felt as good on the ball as he used to and that he and his team are trying to recreate the feeling he had when he hit 58 at the LIV Greenbrier in 2023, while noting that not too long ago he was one of the best players on the planet. Things change quickly in professional golf.
“Everybody’s going to have their opinion on it,” DeChambeau said. “But I can tell you that I worked more on my game last year after the Masters than I have in the last three, four years. The amount of effort I’ve put into understanding my golf swing and what makes that thing come out — what makes the golf club come out more effective and efficient is surprising. But I haven’t realized why I’ve worked with a good team. What I did at the Greenbrier.
“Put one foot in front of the other and keep going,” DeChambeau said to end the video. “I can’t do much more than that. Just last year, before the US Open, I was one of the best championship players in the world. Come a year later, everyone says I’m the worst. It just is. It’s life, it’s golf. Things don’t always go your way. But guess what? Keep going.”
With LIV Golf on hiatus, DeChambeau’s next chance to “move on” will come at the Royal Birkdale Open, where he will try not to miss all four major cuts in 2026.
