Bryson DeChambeau lucky to avoid code of conduct warning over Birkdale behaviour

First things first. The American’s punishment for breaking Rule 8.1 at the fifth hole at Royal Birkdale was the correct call and hats off to The R&A taking such action after the incident was shown in the TV coverage.

DeChambeau may not have done it intentionally, but that doesn’t matter. When he stepped behind his ball in the thick rough, he “inadvertently improved the area of his intended swing”.

No-one is insinuating that he’s a cheat. As someone who clearly loves the game, the two-time US Open champion is probably one of the least likely players to knowingly breach the rules, complicated as they can be sometimes.

Sore as it may have been, especially after he’d finished birdie-birdie to think that he’d be sitting just one shot off the lead at the halfway stage, DeChambeau should have accepted his punishment in a more professional manner than he did.

Grant Moir, The Open’s chief referee, and Mark Litton, a DP World Tour rules official who is part of Moir’s team at this event, took DeChambeau back out to the spot on the fifth hole to talk through why it was felt that he was being hit with his penalty.

They both acted exactly how someone should in such a delicate situation whereas DeChambeau, in contrast, acted in a way that, quite frankly, was out of order, especially when he was waving a club in his hand and it came a bit too close to Moir’s face a couple of times.

It was clear that the American wasn’t accepting what either had to say and you should check out the video where DeChambeau appears to say he “probably won’t be playing tomorrow” to see the reaction of both Moir and Litton to that.

As experienced rules officials, they’ve both been around for a long time and you can see that they can’t quite believe someone coming out and saying “it’s my ball and I’m picking it up and no-one else is playing with it”.

Earlier, Jon Rahm had been given a warning under the aforementioned serious misconduct policy for throwing his club on the 15th tee. Sorry, but in comparison to DeChambeau’s berating officials and acting like a spoiled brat, that was nothing.

It’s starting to seem as though DeChambeau now lives in ‘Bryson-world’ and wants to live by his own rules, having already decided he didn’t want to speak to reporters after his opening round here on Thursday.

On the back of what happened late on Friday night, support will be split for him over the weekend. Proper golfers will know that the two-shot penalty was the correct call, but non-golfers will feel he’s been harshly treated.

It’s added to the narrative in the third round and probably the closing circuit as well and, boy, will golf’s ‘Mr Showman’ lap it up.