LIV GOLF ANDALUCíA

July 13, 2024

Bryson DeChambeau

Real Club Valderrama

Crushers GC

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Welcome the captain of Crushers GC, Bryson DeChambeau.

Bryson, you shot an incredible 4-under today, moved up the leaderboard. You're currently sitting at T-6. Tell us a little bit about your round.

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, I was pleased with the round. Didn't play already strike my wedges and irons as good as I would have liked them or had the control I wanted and I made some mistakes on the par 5s. 17, hitting it down there, and catching not the greatest of lies and trying to hit it a little right and it coming up short and going in the water, and the same thing on 4.

Just derailed a lot of the momentum I had to get it to 3- or 4-under today, and a bit frustrating, but all in all, I mean, shooting 4-under on this golf course is incredible.

I know what I shot last year, and it's great to shoot that but any time you get under par out here is a treat.

THE MODERATOR: Yesterday you shot 4-under and 3-under. Not a lot of movement on the leaderboard. Can you talk about that?

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, shows the teeth of this golf course. It's a championship-style golf course, and I'm super appreciative of all of us playing here and showcasing our stills because it's a true test of golf. You can't fake it around here, and sometimes you play really good golf and don't play well. That's just the essence of a championship-style golf course, and I like that type of challenge.

Q. So your colleague on your team, Lahiri, he is currently in first place and the Crushers in first place on the team leaderboard. Volatile tomorrow. All four scores counting.

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yep.

THE MODERATOR: Do you think it's something that you guys can pull off based on how everyone is playing?

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: When we won the team championship, all four scores counting the last day, we all started at even.

I feel like we are in a good place. I feel like I trust these guys with my life, and look, at the end of the day, it's golf. We may have a bad day tomorrow. We may have a great day tomorrow. It just is what it is and no matter what, there's still a band of brother and I love them to death no matter what.

THE MODERATOR: Obviously this would be Ban's first win if he is able --

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Or five; I'm going to try to get after it.

THE MODERATOR: Are you secretly rooting for him in some capacity? It would be a big win for him.

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, look, I'm going to try my best to accomplish a win out here. I was close last year and want to get that job done but if Ban does, it will be the coolest thing and we'll celebrate appropriately for him.

Q. You mentioned last year, you shot 8-under is the second round last year. Given the conditions, though, is this as good of a round as that round was last year?

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: I think so. There's just a couple things that went my way out there. Obviously holing out today was pretty sick. I just felt like I couldn't get the ball as close as I would have liked to compared to last Saturday, and you know, that's golf, right. You're not going to be perfect every single day. I've got clubs I feel like I'm really comfortable with and some days you just have off-days.

And yesterday wasn't a super off-day but it just wasn't my best. It certainly was close to how I felt like I was playing last year, but just didn't have a couple things go my way.

Q. You talked about the hole-out. You seem to be doing that at every tournament. I can't remember a tournament you haven't really holed out this year.

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Yeah, I've been very blessed and I'm on a good streak in my life, and you know, you have up-and-downs in your career, and look, I've only made one hole-in-one in my life. So obviously I'm on a pretty downward trending motion on that.

Any time you can get out there, slam dunk -- I've never slam dunked it. That was the cool part. That's what I was appreciative of.

I don't know, golf is golf. You're going to have weird stuff happen to you. There are plenty of players that have 40 hole-in-ones, and plenty that have one like myself. It's a crazy game that you just have to look and laugh and love it because of it.

Q. How many rounds have you shot with two balls in the water?

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Very few. Very few. And it wasn't like they were that bad of shots. Like the one on 17 just squirted out right and came out dead. We were expecting it to jump and it didn't jump. I knew if it didn't jump it was going to be most likely in the water but it didn't jump. There was like a 75 percent chance of it jumping.

The one on 4 was sitting up and I tried to like pick it and I didn't turn the clubface over as hard as I needed to and I just -- it was on the pin line. I just didn't hit it far enough. It spun into that first cut so it was a bit frustrating but I got up-and-down and persevered through it.

Q. I don't know if you will find a crazier round than this because you send two balls to the water, one out of the hole. I don't know how do you manage mentally with these situations.

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: I just don't think about it. You just don't think about it. You just keep moving on. That's what I said out there today, if something bad happens, you just have to move on.

And I feel like I've gotten a lot better at that of just letting things happen sometimes, maybe in a negative way and just allowing it to be what it is and not focusing on it, compartmentalizing it and moving past it. I almost attribute it to being, man, I use a lot of Finding Nemo references but being like Dory for getting it 30 seconds later. If you can do that and focus on what you can do, I feel like you'll be in a better place mentally all the time.

Q. In the past few winners, or many winners of the U.S. Open have been successful in Valderrama. Do you think it is just a coincidence or it makes sense?

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Oh, it absolutely makes sense. Golf your ball around here, you have to be a talented individual and I would say that U.S. Open challenges a lot of placement strategy golf. This golf course is the same exact thing. You have to be able to control your ball flights, control your wedges, hit great drives. There's some really tight drives, No. 7, 17 and 14.

So I could see why there's a pretty high correlation to major championship winners and U.S. Open winners doing very well out here, yeah.