The Open, Day 1 roundup: Bryson has equipment concerns, Joaco having fun, and more

TROON, Scotland – News and notes from LIV Golf players competing in Thursday’s first round of The Open Championship at Royal Troon:

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BRYSON’S ISSUES ‘EQUIPMENT-RELATED’: Bryson DeChambeau is seeking to become the first player since Tiger Woods in 2000 to win both the U.S. Open and Open Championship in the same year. While his opening 5-over 76 doesn’t completely eliminate his chances, he’ll need to bounce back in a big way Friday just to make the cut.

One item he’ll need to solve is the issue of his highly tuned equipment not matching the colder conditions at Royal Troon.

DeChambeau cited this as one of the problems during a round in which he suffered five bogeys and a double before posting a much-needed eagle on the par-5 16th, his only hole in red numbers for the day.

Although the Crushers GC captain missed several short putts early in his round when he played the first eight holes in 6 over, he didn’t blame his putter for the score. Instead, it was his errant tee-to-green play – he hit just 57% of the fairways and 44% greens in regulation.

DeChambeau said the wind on the outward nine was in and off the right. “I was trying [to] draw the ball and the ball was knuckling a little bit,” he said. “It was a really difficult challenge, and I should have just cut the ball.”

He explained that “it's something equipment-related. Look, I'm not at 190 [mph] ball speed, so particularly when I'm hitting driver or 3-wood, those clubs are built for around that speed, that 190 ball speed, and my 3-wood [is] around 180, so in colder, firmer conditions the golf ball is not compressing as much. So, it's probably something along those lines.

“Felt like I was swinging it somewhat OK, just the ball wasn't coming off in that window that I normally see. It was a weird day.”

On his double bogey at the par-5 sixth, he found a thick lie with his tee shot, and used a 7-iron to hack out but thinned it and caught the rough, his ball traveling only four yards. He then opened the face of his 5-wood on his third shot, with the ball squirting off the left side of the club and ending up shooting left. “I'm just glad nobody got hurt,” he said. 

DeChambeau entered the week a cumulative 28 under in the three majors, the best of any golfer this season. The 76 is his highest score in his last nine major starts. 

“I'm just proud of the way I persevered today,” he said. “Shoot, man, I could have thrown in the towel after nine and could have been like, 'I'm going home.' But no, I've got a chance tomorrow. I'm excited for the challenge. If I have some putts go in and hit some shots the way I know how to and figure out this equipment stuff, I'll be good.”

RAHM’S UK PLAYING PARTNERS: Jon Rahm’s playing partners in the first two rounds – Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre, winner of last week’s Scottish Open, and England’s Tommy Fleetwood – certainly have a decided advantage in experience when it comes to links courses.

It’s a potential opportunity for the Spanish-born Legion XIII captain to glean some insight on a course he’s never played before, but none of the three could break par. MacIntyre birdied the last hole for a 1-over 72, while Rahm shot 73 and Fleetwood 76.

“You want to learn, but I think we were all suffering equally,” Rahm said. “Tommy didn't have his best day, and Bob [MacIntyre], Bob played good. Bob could have easily shot two or three lower because he had a couple of lip-outs.

“You could just tell in Bob's case how comfortable he is, just in general. He told me he grew up not that far away from here, only 40 miles. Probably one more day for him, just another day of golf.

“Yeah, I think in championship rounds it's equally difficult for everybody.”

Rahm said he played “OK” in a round that included just one birdie and three bogeys, with two of those coming on par 5s. 

“What I was able to do was make a lot of good par putts that kept the round going, but I didn't put myself in position enough to maybe make a couple of birdies and shoot somewhere even-par or even 1-under, which would have been a fantastic round,” he said.

JOACO’S HAVING FUN: Growing up in Chile, Joaquin Niemann was far-removed from the British Isle links-style golf experience. But he enjoys the creative aspect of navigating his way through the course, and it showed with an even-par 71.

"There's a lot of shots that you go with different trajectory, or it could be two different clubs at the same time,” said the Torque GC captain, a two-time LIV Golf winner this season who leads the individual season-long points race.

“Just sticking to one of those shots, and hopefully it will be the right one and you just commit to that. I feel like that's a lot of fun, and that's the way I like to play.”

The 25-year-old is making just his fifth Open start and did not finish inside the top 50 in his two made cuts. But he’s in good form, and he said he hit just two poor shots on Thursday, both with wedges.

“I'm pretty happy with the way I played today,” he said. “It was an enjoyable day.”

MEANWHILE, HATTON NOT HAVING FUN: Tyrrell Hatton has been hitting it great in his last two LIV Golf starts, winning in Nashville and finishing third last week in Andalucía.

His swing evidently was nowhere to be found Thursday in shooting a 2-over 73.

“My ball-striking day was pretty awful,” said the Legion XIII star. “It's one of the worst rounds I think I've had this year, in terms of how I think I've hit the golf ball. It wasn't a fun experience.”

Hatton started his round with 13 consecutive pars, suffered consecutive bogeys, then finished with three pars. Hatton said he could anticipate this kind of performance based off his practice days this week.

“I was hitting balls on Tuesday, and we videoed one of the swings, and it was like miles out from where I would expect to see it,” the Englishman said. “That was a little bit of a shock.

“Yeah, I tried all of yesterday to get it back to where it kind of should be, where I've played pretty good golf in the past. Yeah, going out there with trying the same feeling, it's not nice going out there with a kind of swing thought. I've always played pretty freely or tried to, but it was so far out that I had to try really hard to get it back to where it was. Obviously today it didn't really work.”

BURMESTER’S RALLY: A stretch of four consecutive bogeys had Dean Burmester free-falling down the leaderboard. But the Stinger GC star did not beat himself up over it.

In fact, he and caddie Jason Reynolds are taking the opposite approach to any adversity after last week’s result at LIV Golf Andalucía when he led after an opening 66 but fell out of contention with consecutive 75s on the weekend.

“We just agreed this week that I'm not going to be too hard on myself,” Burmester said. “I’m not going to get down on myself. If I hit bad shots, so what. Last week that's what I did, and it ended up costing me a chance of contending at a tournament.”

The positive affirmation worked well the rest of his opening round at Royal Troon, as Burmester rallied to finish with an even-par 70.

“A bit scratchy to be honest,” the South African said when asked to assess his round. “I was not at my best, and really haven't been since the first round of Valderrama. Obviously the two rounds after that weren't great.

“I felt kind of similar today, that I didn't have it, and then all of a sudden, I hit a great shot into 12 and made the putt, and I just felt like, OK, we got a little bit of momentum. Coming downwind home, anything can happen. Then holed that bunker shot and it changed the whole course of the round for me.”

That bunker shot came at the par-5 16th after his second shot missed the green right and caught the front bunker on that side, leaving him 23 yards from the pin. Just trying to get it out cleanly, his ball took one bounce and hopped in for eagle.

“Blocking it in the bunker, I wasn't ecstatic, but that gave me an amazing moment I won't forget,” Burmester said. “It was really cool to have a full grandstand there, and to hit a shot, have it one-bounce in the hole was cool.”

What was also cool was getting a bit of a pep talk from playing partner Darren Clarke, the 55-year-old Northern Irishman who won the Open in 2011.

After Burmester’s fourth consecutive bogey at the seventh hole, he followed with a much-needed positive shot, his tee ball at the famous Postage Stamp par-3 eighth finishing inside 7 feet. As they were walking toward the green, Clarke turned to Burmester and said, “Go on and roll it in.”

Which Burmester proceeded to do. Clarke, waiting on the green, simply said, “Wasn’t that nice?”

“Yeah, that kind of changed my mood a little bit,” Burmester said. “I hit a lot of good shots from there, and some not so good. But that's links golf. You can get away with it, and sometimes you get punished.”

TOUGH DAY FOR CAM: 2022 Open champion Cameron Smith suffered nine bogeys and a triple en route to a 9-over 80, his worst round of his Open career.

"Just a bad day, really," said the Ripper GC captain. "I mean, if you had have told me yesterday that I was going to shoot that, I wouldn't have said that was possible. But yeah, just a bit of a crappy start and didn't really manage to hole any putts when I needed to to get back in it."

After a bogey on the opening hole, Smith tripled the par-4 second after his tee shot went out of bounds near the train tracks.

Smith tied for sixth last week at LIV Golf Andalucia and was hopeful of carrying that momentum into Troon.

"Jst a brutal day, really," he said. "I really was quietly confident this week after last week"

ROUND 2 TEE TIMES

Friday’s second-round local tee times for LIV Golf players

7:30 a.m. (2:30 a.m. ET) – Henrik Stenson (Majesticks GC)
7:41 a.m. (2:41 a.m. ET) – Louis Oosthuizen (Stinger GC)
8:03 a.m. (3:03 a.m. ET) – Adrian Meronk (Cleeks GC)
8:36 a.m. (3:36 a.m. ET) – Dean Burmester (Stinger GC)
8:47 a.m. (3:47 a.m. ET) – Phil Mickelson (HyFlyers GC), Dustin Johnson (4Aces GC)
9:14 a.m. (4:14 a.m. ET) – Brooks Koepka (Smash GC)
9:47 a.m. (3:47 a.m. ET) – Cameron Smith (Ripper GC)
10:31 a.m. (5:31 a.m. ET) – Andy Ogletree (HyFlyers GC)
11:15 a.m. (6:15 a.m. ET) – Sam Horsfield (Majesticks GC)
12:20 p.m. (7:20 a.m. ET) – Abraham Ancer (Fireballs GC)
2:04 p.m. (9:04 a.m. ET) – Joaquin Niemann (Torque GC)
2:37 p.m. (9:37 a.m. ET) – Jon Rahm (Legion XIII)
2:48 p.m. (9:48 a.m. ET) – Bryson DeChambeau (Crushers GC)
3:10 p.m. (10:10 a.m. ET) – Tyrrell Hatton (Legion XIII)
3:54 p.m. (10:54 a.m. ET) – David Puig (Fireballs GC), John Catlin (reserve player)

ROUND 1 SCORES

(Photos courtesy of Luke Walker/R&A/R&A via Getty Images)