🔬 Bryson DeChambeau Shot 67 At The Open Using Clubs That Don’t Technically Exist Yet
Round one at Royal Birkdale, and the man who turned professional golf into a personal science experiment just fired a 3-UNDER 67 using PROTOTYPE irons that aren’t commercially available, in steel shafts he specifically switched to for links conditions, attached to Krank woods that approximately ZERO other tour players use. His driver loft is SIX degrees. Some putters have more loft than his driver. (source)
Here’s what makes this genuinely maddening: it works. He doesn’t just post podcast episodes about optimizing launch angles — he shows up at a major with irons his equipment rep probably printed out that morning and goes low. The steel shaft pivot is the part that should get more attention. Every other elite ball-striker on tour is chasing lighter graphite, more responsiveness, less weight. Bryson looks at firm links turf and goes “actually, steel.” And then shoots 67. There is no rational explanation for how he keeps being right.
The Krank situation is its own thing entirely. He’s basically the only tour-level player running their woods, full stop. Most equipment brands would kill for a single tour staffer. Bryson looked at the entire endorsement ecosystem and said “no thanks, I’ll use the one company nobody else chose.” And the driver goes FOREVER. You can roll your eyes at the Extended Bryson Universe — the protein content, the lab, the podcast, all of it — but the equipment instincts are legitimately elite in a way that deserves more credit than he gets.
The gap between “guy who thinks obsessively about this” and “everyone else” has never been more visible than watching him post a round-one 67 with clubs that don’t have a product page yet. Annoying that it works. Good for him that it does.
🚲 Someone Rode An E-Bike Across The Greens At River Oaks CC In Houston And There Is Now A Manhunt
The greens are cooked, every superintendent in Texas is in SHAMBLES, and whoever this kid is, he has achieved a level of notoriety that no amount of apologizing will ever fully undo. (source)
⚙️ Collin Morikawa Took His Irons To A Cart Path And Dragged Them Across It. On Purpose.
Pre-Open prep included Morikawa literally scraping the leading edges of his irons along a cart path to simulate how firm links turf interacts with the club at impact. Not a metaphor. He found a cart path, crouched down, and ground his irons into it like he was sharpening something. (source)
The logic actually holds up — links turf hits the leading edge harder than soft parkland grass, and recreating that contact before the tournament gives you real feedback on how the iron behaves. It still looks completely unhinged. Two-time major winner, crouching over a stretch of asphalt, running a 6-iron across it. The mental image alone is incredible.
🏴 Tom Watson, Five-Time Open Champion, Is Just Wandering Royal Birkdale Dispensing Wisdom Like A Golf Gandalf And Nobody Asked For This But We All Need It
Nobody requested this. Everyone wants it. (source)
🤔 Has Scottie Scheffler Lost His Edge, Or Are We Just Desperate For A Story?
The “has Scottie lost it” narrative is floating around Open week and it’s worth taking seriously for a second instead of just dismissing it. (source)
Real take: Scheffler hasn’t lost anything. What’s actually happened is the field has spent two-plus years adjusting their approach specifically because of him. When you’re World No. 1 by a margin that embarrassing for that long, opponents stop playing their own game and start playing around yours. The question worth asking isn’t whether Scottie has slipped — it’s whether his margins have compressed. “Slightly worse Scheffler” still looks like “very good golfer” to everyone else, but it shows up differently on leaderboards.
The more interesting point is what links golf specifically does to his game. Birkdale rewards a kind of creative, low-trajectory shot-making and course-management patience that’s genuinely different from the target golf he executes perfectly week to week on tour. His iron game is elite in any format, but links conditions expose everyone’s ceiling differently. If he struggles this week, it’s not an edge problem. It’s a format problem. Those are different things and the “has he lost it” framing collapses them into one.
👟 FootJoy Just Dropped Their Annual Harris Tweed Collab And They Are, Once Again, Extremely Good Shoes
Every year. Every single year. We say we’re not going to want them. We are always wrong. (source)
🚗 MyGolfSpy Tested FORTY-TWO Drivers This Year And Someone Had To Finish Last
Forty-two drivers. One finished last. The brand is not named here out of what can only be described as mercy, but it exists, it has a product page, and somewhere a marketing team is having a very bad week. (source)
🎸 Noah Kahan Made A Hole-In-One And Immediately Treated It Like A Press Conference
Folk music’s most famous sad boy went viral for an ace and then sat down with the Fore Play guys to give a full debrief. The energy was “athlete addresses the media after a playoff win.” Respect the commitment to the bit. (source)
He’s got a sold-out arena tour, an awards season situation, and now an ace he gets to bring up at dinner parties until he’s eighty. Genuinely earned that one. The hole-in-one industrial complex welcomes another member.
That’s the week. Bryson’s prototype irons are probably already obsolete — he’s definitely on version two by now. See you after the cut.
All 3 clubs are fitted with high quality shafts, and all 3 are very solid feeling clubs. I didn't notice any measurable distance advantage with any club, but I would need to use a launch monitor to be sure. My Adams went the furthest, but that's because it has less loft than the others and I'm more familiar with it, having it in my bag for over 3 years.
The Nike VR Pro Limited edition ($229 street price) and Exotics CB4 Tour ($299 street price) produced a mid-level ball flight that balloons just a tiny bit, but it’s predictable. The Taylor Made R11 TP ($299 street price) flew a bit lower with no ballooning (likely due to a stronger shaft and slightly lower loft). All 3 clubs are workable both ways, and they work well from a variety of lies.
The Taylor Made tends to dig a bit and take a small divot, where the others glide over the turf. That is undesirable, and sometimes leads to fat shots and pop-ups. Both the Exotics and Nike look great, with no extraneous marks or graphics, but the Taylor Made is a bit distracting with the white paint, logo and pin stripes on the crown of the club. I’m not a big fan of the White clubs, but if they perform I can overlook it. For the most part, adjustable clubs seem like a marketing gimmick to me, but I really like the ability to adjust the club open or closed with the sole plate of the Taylor Made without having to remove the shaft. The adjustable FCT hosel has settings for lower or higher loft, but this is misleading. (See my note below for an explination) The Nike looks very clean and sharp, and the graphics and sole design are attractive. The all black head and shaft of the Exotics is very cool. I think if 
All three clubs sound great at impact but the Nike’s metallic click sounds the most like my gamer, so it wins the acoustic battle in my mind. However, some may prefer the CB4 Tour’s titanium click sound, which is a little higher pitched than the metal heads of the others.
