Rory McIlroy blasts Bryson DeChambeau: FULL TRANSCRIPT of Royal Birkdale takedown

McIlroy: "I'm not particularly fond of him."

Published Jul 18, 2026  •  Last updated 19 minutes ago  •  2 minute read

Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy reacts on the 12th green on day three of the 154th Open Golf championship at Royal Birkdale Golf Club near Southport in northwest England on July 18, 2026. Photo by Ben Stansall /Getty Images

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SOUTHPORT, England — An Open Championship that has seen a few firsts this week was delivered another on Saturday when Rory McIlroy offered a public takedown of Bryson DeChambeau.

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Sports has seen its fair share of rivalries and disputes, but derogatory comments delivered in front of a microphone are usually couched as competitive banter rather than a plain-spoken evisceration of a man’s personality and character.

Following his Saturday round at Royal Birkdale, McIlroy was asked his thoughts on Friday’s rules infraction involving DeChambeau and the subsequent delay in releasing third-round tee times as the LIV Golf star possibly debated withdrawing from the tournament.

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Here are McIlroy’s post-round comments on DeChambeau in full:

Question from reporter: Can I ask your opinion on the Bryson ruling last night. A few different players have been in with different interpretations of it. What were you seeing?

McILROY: I was watching it live. I was up in the players lounge watching it with a few other players, and as soon as he made the step into the ball, we all sort of looked at each other, and we were like, that didn’t seem right.

Then when I heard that he was called in by the rules officials, I think we all — it was pretty obvious for why.

Yeah, I think there’s no doubt that he improved the line of his backswing. Again, it’s like, whether it was careless or whether it was intentional, I don’t think it matters. Hopefully it was careless, but I think the two-shot penalty was justified for sure.

Q. What did you think of the scenes after? Obviously you guys were delayed getting your tee times as well because of all of that going on.

McILROY: Late night for everyone. Yeah, look, 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.

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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.

Q. Do you think he knew what he was doing?

McILROY: Look, he’s going to say — like, again, I’m not in his mind. I’m not in his — but it didn’t look good.

Q. Something like that, does it happen more often than we know and it just isn’t viewed or seen?

McILROY: Yeah, it’s hard. Every shot is on camera. There’s a lot of guys that play this week and the shots aren’t on camera. So you can say that that’s unfair or whatever, or it might happen more than it does. It’s obviously impossible to police everyone, and that’s why it is, for the most part, a self-policing game.

I think when there is obvious evidence like there was last night, then obviously that’s a different story.

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   'A bit of a joke': Players call out Bryson DeChambeau for late-night Birkdale chaos
2. 

   DeChambeau penalized two strokes after bizarre field trip with rules officials

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