Rory McIlroy calls out Bryson DeChambeau for holding The Open ‘hostage’ after Friday controversy

Bryson DeChambeau has quickly become The Open’s main storyline. Unfortunately, not for his on-course performance, where DeChambeau thought he would be going into the weekend in second place of the major championship. Instead, DeChambeau had to deal with a two-stroke penalty after altering his swing path on the 5th hole on Friday. To say he was unhappy would be an understatement, even threatening to withdraw. Reaction has come from the golf world ever since. Rory McIlroy was one of them, calling out DeChambeau for his actions. McIlroy believes DeChambeau held everyone involved with The Open “hostage.” Tee times and pairings were not released until quite late in the evening, leaving plenty of questions about what Saturday would look like. “Late night for everyone,” McIlroy said. “Yeah, look, I won’t pretend to be up here and defend Bryson. I’m not particularly fond of him. I think a lot of it’s performative. I think a lot of it’s for attention. To hold the tournament hostage like that, and to have all of us, players, volunteers, everyone waiting on him to depart, I didn’t feel like it was a great look.” After everything was all said and done, DeChambeau was in the third-to-last group to tee off. He was paired with Sam Burns. Things got underway at 10:30 a.m. ET, as DeChambeau still has an opportunity to contend for his third-ever major championship. He just might not have a lot of people supporting him. The Open’s rules official explains two-stroke penalty for Bryson DeChambeau Taking away two strokes from a player near the top of the leaderboard is no small decision. Especially somebody of DeChambeau’s stature, who is a popular talking point in the sport. So, an explanation on the matter was needed. The Open’s rules official, Grant Moir, spoke to the media and provided one on Friday. “Ruling 1 restricts what a player may do to improve any of the protected conditions affecting the stroke, and this includes the area of the player’s intended swing,” Moir told reporters Friday. “An improvement means to alter one or more of the conditions affecting the stroke so that the player gains a potential advantage for the stroke. Now, I’ll stress that this applies even when the action is accidental, as it was in Bryson’s case. The area of intended swing includes the entire area that might reasonably affect any part of the backswing, the downswing or the completion of the swing for the intended stroke, and importantly, what the prohibited action here is that the player mustn’t move, bend or break any growing or attached natural object. “A player is allowed to fairly take their stance by taking reasonable actions to get to the ball and take a stance, if in some situations that improves the condition affecting the stroke, but when doing so, the player must take the least intrusive course of action to deal with the particular situation and is not entitled to a normal stance or swing. I would reiterate this rule applies even when there’s no intention to improve the area, as was the case with Bryson.”