SANDWICH, England — While Brooks Koepka took great delight in his rival’s missteps, Bryson DeChambeau apologized again Friday for his strong remarks a day earlier about his equipment company and made the cut on the number to qualify for the weekend at Royal St. George’s.
DeChambeau is 12 strokes back of tournament leader Louis Oosthuizen through two rounds of The Open. But the world’s oldest golf championship has seemingly been pushed aside because of DeChambeau’s antics, which included saying that his driver “sucks” and drawing a rebuke from equipment maker Cobra.
“I love my driver,” Koepka said coyly in an interview with Golf Channel after a 66 that saw him move into a tie for 12th.
He later tweeted a photo with the caption: “Driving into the weekend!”
Driving into the weekend! pic.twitter.com/poSQG0mrvC
— Brooks Koepka (@BKoepka) July 16, 2021
DeChambeau, who shot a second-round 70, was left to pick up the pieces. He declined television and media requests but spoke to a small group of reporters.
“I made a mistake,” he said. “I think as time goes on, I’ll look at this as a growing moment for me personally, and hopefully I can make the right things going on from here on out. I was in a heated situation, and I feel really bad about it.”
After his opening-round 71 in which he hit just four of 14 fairways, DeChambeau said that his “driver sucks” and that he was living on the razor’s edge after four years of trying to get it right.
Ben Schomin, who caddied for DeChambeau two weeks after his split with former caddie Tim Tucker and is Cobra’s tour operations manager, pushed back in an interview with Golfweek, saying the comments were “stupid” and expressing frustration at how hard the company works to appease the eight-time PGA Tour winner.
