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As golf’s civil war rumbles on, with any optimism that came from the announcement in June 2023 that LIV Golf and the PGA Tour had a framework agreement in place for a merger having long since dissipated, it’s hard to argue that the situation has created many winners.
The players that made the switch to LIV have certainly been handsomely compensated from a financial perspective but they were hardly poor before and the low-wattage LIV events seem to be harming their chances of winning majors – with the likes of Jon Rahm and Dustin Johnson largely uncompetitive since making the switch and the likes of Talor Gooch now missing out entirely due to the lack of ranking points available.
Golf fans have certainly suffered, with the best players on the planet now split across two tours, making both less watchable on a week-to-week basis. Paltry viewing figures for LIV and rapidly collapsing TV ratings for the PGA Tour is proof of the waning interest and the endless parading of golfing politics as the civil war continues is hardly attractive to the casual fan.
The players who stayed loyal to the PGA Tour appear either powerless to control the direction of their sport or, in the case of the Rory McIlroys of the world, have engaged so deeply with the split that they admit it is now negatively impacting their on-course performances. The Scottie Schefflers and Xander Schauffeles who are succeeding on the course appear to be doing so in spite of the split, rather than because of it but even they can’t be relishing the constant questions and uncertainty around when everything will be resolved.
The PGA Tour themselves, led by the increasingly unpopular commissioner Jay Monahan, have incurred the wrath of players and fans alike at both the lack of transparency and the inability to clean up the mess they find themselves in. While even PIF – the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia bankrolling LIV – can’t be happy with the lack of return on investment so far and the mess the sport finds itself in.
But amid that negativity, there stands one notable exception – the real winner of golf’s civil war has to be Bryson DeChambeau. And 2024 was undoubtedly the year of Bryson.
You may remember when the first defectors made the switch from the PGA Tour to LIV back in 2022 that there was a lot of talk about how excited they were to have a lighter schedule and to be able to “grow the game”. Everyone implicitly understood that the main draw was the mega money they were receiving, often guaranteed rather than purely being based on performance, but it was considered uncouth to admit as much, so these slightly more disingenuous reasons became the explanations du jour.
While those discussions have steadily faded away over the past couple of years, DeChambeau – who joined LIV in a reported $125m deal, so has certainly not gone hungry – is the one person who has genuinely walked the walk.
The additional freedom granted by LIV has seen the Californian cash in on his quirky personality by starting his own wildly popular YouTube channel. Since setting the channel up a couple of years ago, the Californian has gained 1.65 million subscribers, with his videos having accrued 250 million views.
His “Break 50” challenge series sees him team up with a partner from either inside or outside the world of golf – Phil Mickelson, John Daly, Tom Brady and most memorably, President Donald Trump – to shoot in the 40s over 18 holes from the front red tees on a suitable course. He has also collaborated on videos with the biggest names on golf YouTube, such as Bob Does Sports, Paige Spiranac and Garrett Clark – people who may not be familiar to a traditional golf fan but have a huge online presence and millions of video views themselves.
It’s consistently entertaining content, as was DeChambeau producing a series of videos that went viral of him trying to hit a hole-in-one over the roof of his own house. He succeeded on day 16.
DeChambeau has embraced the possibilities that YouTube offers professional golfers – allowing people to see the personality behind the sportsman and reaching audiences that, with the best will in the world, TV coverage of tour events such as the Genesis Invitational or the Farmers Insurance Open simply can’t.
“You get to see people as they really are and this is what YouTube has told me,” DeChambeau explained in an interview with The Telegraph earlier this year.
“I understand the whole perception-reality thing. Perception is reality and by having the control to present how I appear with my channel, I can show who I really am. YouTube is the next generation, the untapped market for golf.”
DeChambeau has arguably shown more vision and innovation in a couple of years on YouTube than golf’s traditional powerbrokers have in decades. When he talks about growing the game, there may be a slight corniness to it that makes the cynic in you want to roll your eyes but the earnestness with which he says it draws you in regardless.
“I believe that time always tells who the person truly is and it’s been more of me just realising how much good I can do for the world, and that I want to do for the world, and trying to bring people together via the game of golf. Yeah, that’s my big thing,” he explained. “I want to play a large part in growing the game from 100 million golfers to 150 million in the next decade”.
Perhaps the difference between Dechambeau and many of the others who made the switch to LIV – and suddenly saw many of their fans and former allies turn on them in golf’s civil war – is that the 31-year-old was, by his own admission, already an outcast.
He burst on to the golfing scene with a ‘mad scientist’ persona. He would think outside the box about how to improve his game, experiment with the minutiae of clubs, balls, launch angles, putting technique and explain it all in punishing detail, yet combined that with an in-your-face, brash personality.
In the parlance of American high school movies, he was both a jock and a nerd but disliked by both factions and ended up short of friends within pro golf. The famous clip of Brooks Koepka visibly grimacing when he heard DeChambeau walking behind him said quite a lot about his personality.
Yet beneath the brashness, DeChambeau had an insecurity and a desperation to be liked, which meant he struggled to brush off the negativity sent his way.
“I know I am different and enjoy being different,” he said. “But at the same time, I want to be accepted.”
LIV Golf provided a sense of fraternity for the American and he has openly admitted that has helped him thrive.
“I haven’t changed who I am, it’s just people finally seeing who I am,” he added. “It would have been impossible for me to have come this far again without LIV. It gave me the time to get healthy and develop.
“I came to LIV and suddenly there were players in the same boat as me. Because they were getting stick as well, not from the LIV fans but seemingly everywhere else. I was not alone in being disliked and could share these feelings with my teammates and my colleagues.”
The fact that even Koepka is now on friendly terms with DeChambeau and has acknowledged he simply didn’t know him well enough before shows how far things have come.
But ultimately, a golfer’s legacy is defined by results, and what confirmed 2024 as the year of DeChambeau is the fact he added a second major to his tally.
Having won the US Open back in 2020, he did so again four years later and in the most spectacular of fashion. In tough conditions on the final day at Pinehurst, leader McIlroy collapsed with three bogeys in the final four holes, including missing a three-foot putt.
DeChambeau was also struggling but scrambling his way to pars until he ended up in the bunker at the 18th. He looked like he would do well to make a bogey that would send him to a playoff against McIlroy but produced one of the all-time great shots to loft the ball within a few feet of the hole and convert for the most dramatic of par saves to win the tournament by a single shot.
It was a truly remarkable shot that has already passed into golfing folklore and was the cherry on top of a promising year at the majors for DeChambeau as he also finished T-6 at the Masters and second at the US PGA. Happy with his lot at LIV, he is taking that confidence to the biggest stage.
Who knows what 2025 will bring – perhaps a Ryder Cup return, or even another major title – but 2024 was Bryson’s year on and off the course and he has shown the template for how to make the most of an endless civil war
