The Shot That Reminds Us Why Bryson DeChambeau Is Impossible to Count Out

In 35 years of covering professional golf, I’ve learned that the most revealing moments often happen when things go wrong. Not catastrophically wrong—just wrong enough to expose something true about a player’s character. That’s exactly what happened on Wednesday at the Grange Golf Club in Adelaide when Bryson DeChambeau completely topped a drive, then somehow turned it into a birdie.

Here’s the thing about that shot that most casual observers are missing: it tells you everything you need to know about why DeChambeau remains one of the most dangerous players in the world, regardless of which tour he’s competing on.

The Shot Heard ‘Round Adelaide

Let me set the scene. DeChambeau is standing on the 10th tee at LIV Golf Adelaide—a 529-yard par-5 where his length should be a legitimate advantage. He’s thinking eagle. His club makes contact with the ground before the ball, sending it screaming forward just one yard off the turf in what David Feherty accurately described as a “stone-cold skull job.”

“Did I hit the ground on that or it just knuckled?”

That’s DeChambeau to his caddie immediately after the shot, and there’s genuine confusion in the question. He didn’t know what he’d just done. That’s actually the important part.

The ball somehow traveled 245 yards down the fairway. Two hundred and forty-five yards from a completely mishit shot. From there, he hit a 288-yard approach that found the green, took two putts, and walked away with a birdie. In Round 1, he’d string together seven birdies to tie for the lead at six under.

What This Really Means

In my experience covering tour events since the late 1980s, I’ve noticed something about the game’s greatest competitors: they possess an almost supernatural ability to compartmentalize bad shots. They don’t spiral. They don’t overthink the next swing. They just move on to the next problem and solve it.

Having caddied for Tom Lehman back in the ’90s, I saw this trait up close. Tom had a remarkable capacity to flush a bad shot from his mind within seconds and execute perfectly under pressure on the very next hole. That’s a skill you can’t really teach. You either have it or you don’t.

DeChambeau has it in spades. What strikes me about his Adelaide moment isn’t that he hit a terrible shot—everyone does. It’s that he recovered so completely that he didn’t just make par; he made birdie. The mentality required to do that, to not let a complete misfire contaminate your confidence, separates the truly elite from the merely excellent.

The LIV format, with its 54-hole structure and smaller field sizes, may suit certain players better than others. But DeChambeau’s ability to navigate adversity on a hole-by-hole basis remains his biggest asset, regardless of where he’s playing or who he’s competing against.

The Bigger Picture

I think what’s happening with DeChambeau at LIV is worth monitoring carefully. He’s a two-time U.S. Open champion—a legitimate major winner with the credentials to back up his swagger. The question that’s lingered since the Saudi-backed tour’s launch hasn’t been whether DeChambeau could win; it’s been whether he could sustain excellence over 54 holes against the caliber of competition available.

“There’s something you don’t see every day. Stone-cold skulled it.”

That was Feherty’s commentary, and it speaks to something broader about modern professional golf. We’ve become so accustomed to seeing these players execute near-perfect golf that when something genuinely odd happens—like a topped drive that still goes 245 yards—it becomes genuinely newsworthy. The skill level has simply become stratospheric.

DeChambeau’s opening round in Adelaide demonstrates that even when mechanics go sideways, the margin for error in elite-level golf is surprisingly small. A completely mishit shot that would derail a PGA Tour pro for the rest of the round becomes merely a footnote for him. That’s the difference between very good and great.

Looking Ahead

With three rounds remaining and DeChambeau tied for the lead, we’re about to find out whether his hot start at Adelaide represents a breakthrough moment or simply another strong performance in what’s becoming a more interesting competitive landscape than some predicted.

The LIV format suits aggressive play. It suits bombers. And it suits players with the mental fortitude to shrug off miscues and attack pins. DeChambeau checks all those boxes. The topped drive at the 10th? That’s already forgotten. What matters now is whether he can sustain the offensive approach that netted him seven birdies in Round 1.

After 15 Masters, countless major championships, and a caddie bag full of memorable moments, I can tell you this: the shots that matter most aren’t always the pretty ones. Sometimes it’s how you respond to the ugly ones that defines a champion.