Big Dumb Golf Baby Threatened to Call Daddy Trump for Help at the Open

A recurring theme has emerged in the golf world, as big dumb babies are using their phone-a-friend lifeline to call dear leader to try to bail them out of trouble. To my millennial cohort and older, Tiger Woods is a generational force who irrevocably changed golf forever, but to those old enough to only see the broken down version of his body, a dazed Woods recently saying he was “talking to the president” after crashing his car may be a more enduring image than his classic Sunday red. The good news for Tiger now is that may only be the second-most embarrassing incident this year of a golfer meekly asking the president to bail them out of trouble.

This past weekend at the British Open, golf’s final major of the year, MAGA’s favorite YouTube golf son Bryson DeChambeau had a meltdown for the ages, and multiple reports found that he endeavored to involve Trump in a rules dispute that held up the entire tournament late into Friday night. DeChambeau was assessed a two-stroke penalty after Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews (R&A) officials determined he improved his lie by stepping on some tall grass behind his ball, which took his second round 66 to a 68 and dropped him out of second place and Saturday’s final pairing. It was first reported by golf writer Geoff Shackelford at The Quad that “Sources with knowledge of the thirty-minute discussion said DeChambeau wanted the President to join a campaign against the eventual two-stroke penalty.” Additional corroborating reports flowed in afterwards as a legion of reporters texted their sources some version of “really?” 

Apparently so! Even Fox News claims that “Trump reportedly denied DeChambeau’s request to step in.” R&A officials also rejected Bryson’s attempt to involve Trump in his rules dispute, per Shackelford’s sources, and Bryson subsequently held the entire tournament up by refusing to sign his scorecard in protest that he could not receive the same treatment so many (wrongly) believe Team USA soccer got. This prevented players who finished after him from turning their cards in and going home, which then prevented the Open from setting the pairings on Saturday, delaying the entire tournament so Bryson could throw a temper tantrum and threaten to call his dad, all while his dad refused to pick up.

Now that you know the backdrop for all that, here is the meltdown below where Bryson, his caddie and R&A officials left the clubhouse to return to the scene of the crime, with USA playing the replay of the rules violation side by side with his live temper tantrum around the 1:28 mark.  

Watch where you’re going and choke down on your 17 foot long clubs you dummy and maybe you’re British Open champion right now. Instead, this is the enduring image of DeChambeau’s lone major success this year. Watching that again knowing at some point he demanded to involve Trump makes this meltdown at least 1,000% funnier.

The violation he makes is so clear, even people who want to bulldoze every golf course on the planet to build affordable housing on top of it can see what he did. Rule 8.1b says you must take the “least intrusive course of action” to get into your stance to hit the ball, and stepping on the tall grass directly behind your ball is something that weekend hackers like me know to avoid. It’s very hard for him to argue he wasn’t concerned about that being in his way given all the time he took figuring out whether the grass was in his way before his shot. Bryson didn’t talk to reporters much this weekend and when he did it seemed to be in his kayfabe YouTube character, but based on R&A executive director of governance Grant Moir’s explanation for the penalty, DeChambeau’s case seemed to rest on the idea that he didn’t mean to make a boo boo.

“I would reiterate this rule applies even when there’s no intention to improve the area, as was the case with Bryson,” Moir said. “That’s all I have to say.” DeChambeau was assessed a two-stroke penalty, then mused about withdrawing from a tournament he thought he was in position to win walking off the course, and generally did all the things that have made him such a reviled character in the world of golf. “I’m not particularly fond of [Bryson],” said Rory McIlroy after watching him hold up the entire tournament with his spoiled rich kid routine. He called DeChambeau’s reaction to the two-stroke penalty “performative,” and this gets to the heart of what makes this guy so annoying beyond his shitty and braindead politics.

A MAGA golfer on the PGA Tour (or the dying LIV, where Bryson has let his immense skills atrophy) is a fork found in kitchen situation. If you are watching golf to root for the people with good politics, you are either a Republican or you are delusional. That is not what makes DeCambeau so irritating. It’s that we talk about his antics and the sideshow he and his legion of cameras bring along with him more than the fact that he is one of the great players of this generation.

He is a genuine innovator in the sport, and his golf mind is truly unique. He hit his first hole in one on one of the most famous holes in the world in the most famous tournament in the world, and he’s won two U.S. Opens and came within a hair of winning two PGA Championships. He should be better than he is, battling atop the sport with Rory and Scottie Scheffler amidst his Tiger-like run, but instead he’s filming YouTube shorts while missing three straight major cuts before making one and immediately melting down in front of the entire world, all while begging Trump to clean up his mess.

If that Fox News report is true, spending his weekend rejecting Bryson’s phone calls while being dragged out of Spain’s World Cup winning photo is more confirmation that Trump’s lone skill is knowing a loser and a winner when he sees one. Bryson is a loser now, an internet personality who muses about withdrawing from the heat of the Open Championship chase because he got caught breaking the rules before retreating in shame to his second-rate tour. As Rory acknowledged, there is some sympathy in that what led to Bryson getting caught, but he doesn’t deserve any of it. He’s a big star and has a ton of cameras on him at all times so he can’t get away with things the 132nd ranked player on the Tour might be able to, but for a guy who recently floated the idea of transitioning to a full-time golf YouTube career, it’s hard to feel bad for someone getting exactly what he wants.

“One writer I spoke with who had witnessed the late-night scenes on the driving range Friday recalled a moment when Bryson turned to his team, gestured at the onlooking reporters, and said, ‘Are you seeing this?’”wrote Shane Ryan in Golf Digest. “His tone wasn’t incredulous or annoyed, the writer said—it seemed like he was in awe, like he couldn’t believe his luck.” Ryan followed DeChambeau for the first nine holes of his gritty Saturday round, writing an eloquent recap of what makes this athlete so uniquely frustrating. When it came time for what really matters, the sport itself, DeChambeau grinded through a tough one-under par round with two birdies in the last four holes that kept him in position to win going into Sunday, all while feigning hopelessness the night before.

DeChambeau couldn’t keep the momentum going into Sunday, and he self-ejected from a wide open race with a triple bogey on #11, then quietly dug himself out with back-to-back gutty birdies on #13 and #14 to finish a respectable but disappointing tied for 14th. Journeyman Ryan Fox played one stroke better than everyone else down the stretch, throwing a dart at the pin on #18 and seemingly sprinting up to drain the clutch walk-off birdie for the first major victory of his career. Celebrating this achievement for someone who has spent their life in obscurity two days after Bryson tried to make the 154th British Open all about him felt apropos, to say nothing of how Fox plays at a no-nonsense, light-speed rate while Bryson relishes every nanosecond that a camera is on him. Now with the four golf majors in the rearview mirror and the PGA Tour’s playoff chase taking center stage the rest of the season, Bryson will return to his self-imposed LIV purgatory and YouTube trick shot videos, all while the president keeps texts from him and other losers like him on read.