‘A bit of a joke’: Players call out Bryson DeChambeau for late-night Birkdale chaos

Marco Penge: "Not getting a tee time until 11 p.m. is not great."

Published Jul 18, 2026  •  Last updated 0 minutes ago  •  5 minute read

Bryson DeChambeau of the United States acknowledges the crowd as he finishes his round on the 18th green on day three of the The 154th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale on July 18, 2026 in Southport, England. Photo by Warren Little /Getty Images

SOUTHPORT, England — With the book finally closed on Bryson DeChambeau’s Friday score and weekend status in the tournament, players at Royal Birkdale got on with the Open Championship, and a few of them shared their opinions of what went down during one of the wildest nights in major memory.

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Rory McIlroy offered the mic drop moment when he put his superstar rival on blast.

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“I won’t pretend to be up here and defend Bryson. I’m not particularly fond of him. I think a lot of it’s performative. I think a lot of it’s for attention,” McIlroy said. “To hold the tournament hostage like that, and to have all of us, players, volunteers, everyone waiting on him to depart, I didn’t feel like it was a great look.”

McIlroy said he saw the incident live in the players lounge and that he and other golfers shared a glance when Bryson was galumphing in the grass, and said they all knew it didn’t look right.

To quickly get everyone up to speed: DeChambeau was assessed a two-stroke penalty for stomping around in the long grass on the fifth hole on Friday. The ruling said that, by accident or not, his actions could have created a better stance and swing than the course otherwise would have allowed so a penalty was assessed under rule 8.1. He was not happy. He at one point seemed to threaten that he would not come back to play on Saturday if he was penalized. But instead of taking his clubs and going home, after hitting some balls in the dark while listening to some music, he left the course and told his social media followers that he would play on. End scene.

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Cut to Saturday afternoon. When early starters finished their rounds, they were inevitably asked questions about the incident. The biggest issue with the entire fiasco for most players was that the announcement of third round tee times was delayed until nearly 11 p.m., which apparently risked throwing off their bedtime routine.

Ryan Fox managed to set his alarm correctly, as the burly New Zealander came out on Saturday morning in the calmest of a week of calm conditions and shot the third 62 of the tournament and catapulted himself into contention with much of the day to spare.

“I’ll watch a fair bit of golf on TV and try to get a replay of the All Blacks game,” the Kiwi said, referring to his country’s rugby team beating Ireland on Saturday. “I watched a decent chunk of that this morning, and I was pretty happy with that result too. I just saw Shane (Lowry) on the screen, and I’m looking forward to taking 100 quid off him, the little bet we had.”

Shooting 62 and winning 100 quid makes for a nice little Saturday.

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While Fox had little reason to worry about or share his opinion on DeChambeau’s plight, his playing partner Xander Schauffele weighed in and seemed to show support for the two-time major champ and YouTube star.

“I don’t have social media, so I was wondering why our tee times weren’t coming out at about 10:50 p.m. last night. I’m assuming that had something to do with it,” Schauffele said of Bryson’s Friday night theatre.

“It’s a tough one. Who knows. I have no idea, to be honest,” he said. “I’m assuming you talk to Bryson — I haven’t spoken to him or heard what he said, but he’s just stepping in how you’d normally step in to hit a golf shot. I think the R&A said something along the lines of whether it’s intentional or not, it’s still a penalty.”

(Actually, Bryson hasn’t spoken to the media at majors since the first round of the Masters, but who’s counting?)

“It’s a tough spot to be, obviously, when you’re in high brush, kind of having to dance around to get to your golf ball is a tricky thing,” Schauffele said. “It’s not something we’re used to doing that often. You imagine you give him the benefit of the doubt; he said he didn’t do it intentionally, and it’s unfortunate that he got penalized because he was playing incredibly well and obviously he’s still playing incredibly well, so he’s obviously going to have something to prove these next two days.”

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English PGA Tour rookie Marco Penge seemed to have a slightly different opinion. The promising long-bomber is staying at home this week about an hour from Birkdale, and he was even more annoyed about the late release of tee times. After all, nobody likes a long commute and with roads the size of cart paths around here, driving can get hectic during Open week.

“Yeah, it was a bit of a joke really,” Penge said. “Not getting a tee time until 11 p.m. is not great, really. We could have at least got a heads up for what time the first tee time was going to be. Obviously there was a lot of commotion, so that delayed things.”

Commotion you say? Do tell.

“I mean, clearly it was — what I presumed on social media, that Bryson was deciding whether he was going to play or not,” Penge said. “I presume until they were told whether he was going to play, then we wouldn’t get the tee time until then.”

Is it fair for one man to hold up the bedtimes of an entire field of golfers?

“Nothing to do with me. But yeah, that’s what some players are like, or some people are like,” he said. “It’s one of them things. Hopefully we’ll get told our tee time a little earlier tonight.”

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As for whether the penalty was warranted, Penge wouldn’t dare step in it. Literally, he wouldn’t step in there like Bryson. But talking about it was no problem, though.

“I mean, probably shouldn’t give my opinion on it,” Penge began, before instantly giving his opinion. “Yeah, I mean, you can obviously see on the TV. Everyone has got their own opinion of the scenario. With it being so burnt out, as well. I remember Day One, four times on the front nine I was in the semi-rough and I didn’t ground the club or get anywhere near it because your club is slipping all over the place, so it’s so easy to make a mistake by accident.”

But what about Bryson’s actions?

“Yeah, that one was — I’ll leave that to everyone else,” he said, before continuing.

“If I was in that position, I’d just be very careful where I’m standing and how I get into the ball and make sure I don’t improve my lie. Yeah, I would never want anyone to think I was doing that. That’s how I would deal with it. But yeah.”

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