Bryson DeChambeau has said very little about his future since LIV Golf collapsed. But while questions remain about where he will play next, a head pro who recently hosted him is offering a glimpse of what he is like away from the cameras.
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That man is Oscar Parks, head professional at Sugarloaf Golf Club in western Maine. For context, the two met when DeChambeau made a video for the club, so Parks saw firsthand how he works.
Now, speaking to GOLF Magazine’s Dylan Dethier on The Drop Zone podcast, Parks shared three things that stood out to him. The first was how much control Bryson had over the visit. As Dethier reported, Parks said:
“He was very down to earth. You could tell he was a good, clean, wholesome guy. He doesn’t curse. And he was very much present in what was going on. His team wasn’t prompting him to ask questions. His team wasn’t keeping him on a schedule. He himself was very knowledgeable about what was going on. In a sense, he was running the show,” Parks said with a smile.
Control has been a theme for the American golfer, given how much he has valued controlling his own narrative over the years.
For one, he stopped speaking to reporters at one point, saying his words were being used against him, and eventually built a YouTube channel where he could communicate directly with fans, as GOLF reported.
Of course, not everyone has been convinced by the humble image he projects. CBS Sports once ran a column arguing that his humility was still lacking. Even Bryson admitted this month that he had “said some things that didn’t help.”
But Parks noticed something beyond how DeChambeau handled the visit. The second thing that stood out was how deeply he got into whatever caught his interest. The club already knew he was a nature buff, but seeing that curiosity up close was another matter.
“He was very much into the foliage and what type of trees. Going in there and smelling the leaves and getting right up close with the bark of the tree, I don’t know of many people who would go that far on a trip like that,” Parks added.
The detail obsession isn’t new either. Before this year’s Masters, DeChambeau revealed that he would be playing a 3D-printed 5-iron he had built himself. Whether it is a piece of equipment or the trees around a golf course, he seems to enjoy getting into the finer details.
The third thing Parks remembered was how much time DeChambeau spent with the people who had come out to see him. As Dethier reported, Parks recalled:
“He was a people pleaser. He stayed around to make sure that everyone was having a good time… He signed every single person who waited around for an autograph. He engaged with them and asked them how long they’d been here.”
That side of DeChambeau has been on display at tournaments, too. At LIV Golf UK, he was still signing autographs after most players had left. One writer has even suggested that he looks for opportunities to be “Golf’s Good Guy.” Still, Parks’ account offers a more personal look at the same side of him, away from the tournament setting.
And then there was one more detail that Dethier called perhaps the most DeChambeau thing of all. Even after the round and all the filming, the American wasn’t quite ready to call it a day. There was still something he wanted to work on.
“He came in and talked, and he was like, ‘I need to go hit balls.’ “I need to go practice.’ He went out for 45 minutes to an hour, hit more golf balls till dark, and then he came in, and he signed the rest of the autographs.”
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone who has followed DeChambeau’s career. He has often spoken about how much time he spends working on his game. In a 2020 interview on The Drop Zone, he described spending most of his time on the range, constantly tinkering and looking for improvements.
That is the off-course view. But on the course, his year has been rough.
What That Means for His Game Right Now
DeChambeau started the season strongly, winning back-to-back LIV events in March in Singapore and South Africa. The majors, however, were a different story. He missed the cut at the Masters, PGA Championship, and U.S. Open, the first time in his career he had missed three consecutive major cuts. He did manage to turn things around at The Open, finishing T14 at Royal Birkdale.
Even then, he wasn’t entirely happy with how things were going. Afterward, he said, “Everybody says I’m the worst,” while insisting that neither LIV’s uncertainty nor his content work was responsible for his struggles.
Then came the bigger blow. On November 5, LIV confirmed it was winding down after Saudi funding dried up. Three days later, DeChambeau released a statement saying he wouldn’t “rewrite the last four years.”
That is where things stand now. The PGA Tour bars him for a year following his last LIV start in late August, and CEO Brian Rolapp has said there is no simple path to reinstatement. DeChambeau also passed on the one-time return offer that Brooks Koepka accepted in January. Meanwhile, the DP World Tour has reportedly offered him full playing status for 2027, though he hasn’t committed.
For now, his only confirmed start is the Nedbank Golf Challenge in South Africa, December 3-6. It will be his first regular DP World Tour appearance in almost six years.