DeChambeau Criticises Two-Shot Open Penalty After Royal Birkdale Ruling

What happened:

Watch the highlights:

Bryson DeChambeau has criticised the decision to give him a two-shot penalty during his second round at The Open, according to Sky News. The penalty came after what the source describes as a controversial rules breach at Royal Birkdale. DeChambeau was quoted in the headline framing as being “disappointed” by the ruling and saying, “This fires me up.”

Why it matters:

In a major championship, two shots are not background noise. They can alter cut-line pressure, change the way a player attacks the course and reshape the leaderboard math around a contender. The supplied source does not provide DeChambeau’s score, exact position, the specific rule involved or the full exchange with officials, so the important confirmed point is narrower: a rules decision directly affected his second round, and he publicly objected to it.

Tournament impact:

The Open is already built around small margins: weather shifts, course management, difficult lies and the need to avoid compounding mistakes. A penalty adds a different kind of burden because it is not simply a dropped shot from execution. It becomes part of the competitive psychology of the round. DeChambeau’s reaction suggests he intends to use the controversy as motivation, but the source does not confirm whether that translated into a scoring response.

What changed:

Before the ruling, DeChambeau’s second round could be judged mainly through performance. After it, the round also becomes a rules story. That matters because the public conversation around a major can move quickly from shot-making to procedure. Was the breach obvious? Was the penalty applied correctly? Did the decision come at a decisive moment? The source labels the breach controversial but does not include enough detail to answer those questions here.

What to watch:

The next layer is administrative and competitive. Administratively, follow-up reporting should clarify the rule cited, the sequence that led to the penalty and whether tournament officials offered further explanation. Competitively, the question is whether DeChambeau can keep the penalty from defining his Open. His own reaction, as described by Sky News, points toward defiance rather than resignation.

Confidence:

Confirmed by Sky News: DeChambeau received a two-shot penalty during his second round at The Open at Royal Birkdale, the ruling followed a controversial rules breach, and he criticised the decision as disappointing. Still needing follow-up: the exact rule, the detailed facts of the incident, his leaderboard position and how the penalty affected his final second-round outcome.