{"id":139690,"date":"2026-07-18T11:56:28","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T17:56:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mcilroy-accuses-dechambeau-of-trying-to-hold-the-tournament-hostage-at-british-open\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T11:56:28","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T17:56:28","slug":"mcilroy-accuses-dechambeau-of-trying-to-hold-the-tournament-hostage-at-british-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mcilroy-accuses-dechambeau-of-trying-to-hold-the-tournament-hostage-at-british-open\/","title":{"rendered":"McIlroy accuses DeChambeau of trying to ‘hold the tournament hostage’ at British Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rory
Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland plays his tee shot on the 7th hole during the third day of the British Open Golf championships at Royal Birkdale golf club, in Southport, England, Saturday, July 18, 2026. (AP Photo\/Peter Morrison)<\/span>(AP Photo\/Peter Morrison)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SOUTHPORT, England (AP) \u2014 Rory McIlroy saved one of his best shots at the British Open<\/a> on Saturday for Bryson DeChambeau.<\/p>\n

The world No. 2 didn\u2019t hold back when asked for his thoughts on DeChambeau\u2019s conduct late Friday, when the American was involved in a lengthy, heated post-round exchange with rules officials as they reviewed whether he had inadvertently improved the path of his swing on the fifth hole.<\/p>\n

DeChambeau was penalized two shots<\/a> and there were doubts over whether he would show up for the weekend. The extraordinary late-evening scenes also delayed the release of the tee times for Saturday\u2019s third round.<\/p>\n

\u201cI won\u2019t pretend to be up here and defend Bryson,\u201d McIlroy told reporters after shooting a 1-under 69 in the third round. \u201cI\u2019m not particularly fond of him. I think a lot of it is performative. I think a lot of it\u2019s for attention.”<\/p>\n

\u201cTo hold the tournament hostage like that,\u201d McIlroy continued, \u201cand to have all of us \u2014 players, volunteers, everyone \u2014 waiting on him to depart, I didn\u2019t feel like it was a great look.\u201d<\/p>\n

McIlroy said he watched the initial incident live with a few other players and felt DeChambeau’s actions \u201cdidn\u2019t seem right.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s no doubt that he improved the line of his backswing,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cAgain, it\u2019s like, whether it was careless or whether it was intentional, I don\u2019t think it matters. Hopefully it was careless, but I think the two-shot penalty was justified, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other players were more diplomatic when discussing the incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I was in that position, I\u2019d just be very careful where I\u2019m standing and how I get into the ball and make sure I don\u2019t improve my lie,” said English player Marco Penge, who was among the golfers to post on X late Friday about his frustrations about the tee times being published so late. \u201cYeah, I would never want anyone to think I was doing that. That\u2019s how I would deal with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Open champion Xander Schauffele said DeChambeau could have been given \u201cthe benefit of the doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said he didn\u2019t do it intentionally and it\u2019s unfortunate that he got penalized because he was playing incredibly well and obviously he\u2019s still playing incredibly well,\u201d Schauffele said, \u201cso he\u2019s obviously going to have something to prove these next two days.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP golf: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/golf<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Rory
Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland reacts after missing a putt on the 6th green during the third day of the British Open Golf championships at Royal Birkdale golf club, in Southport, England, Saturday, July 18, 2026. (AP Photo\/Peter Morrison)<\/span>(AP Photo\/Peter Morrison)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Bryson
Bryson DeChambeau of the United States reacts after getting a birdie on the 6th green during the third day of the British Open Golf championships at Royal Birkdale golf club, in Southport, England, Saturday, July 18, 2026. (AP Photo\/Jon Super)<\/span>(AP Photo\/Jon Super)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Bryson
Bryson DeChambeau of the United States looks down the 9th fairway from the tee as he prepares to play during the second day of the British Open Golf championships at Royal Birkdale golf club, in Southport, England, Friday, July 17, 2026. (AP Photo\/David Goldman)<\/span>(AP Photo\/David Goldman)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland plays his tee shot on the 7th hole during the third day of the British Open Golf championships at Royal Birkdale golf club, in Southport, England, Saturday, July 18, 2026. (AP Photo\/Peter Morrison)(AP Photo\/Peter Morrison) SOUTHPORT, England (AP) \u2014 Rory McIlroy saved one of his best shots at the British […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":139691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5734],"tags":[],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-139690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-associated-press"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139690"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=139690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}