Jon Rahm reacts to DeChambeau’s controversial Open | Sports News

Jon Rahm acknowledged the “consensus” surrounding Bryson DeChambeau’s penalty at The Open Championship was that he did commit a violation, albeit unintentionally.

DeChambeau acquired a two-stroke penalty during the second spherical of the Open Championship after the two-time U.S. Open champion controversially pressed down grass during his backswing, although he maintained he was assessing his shot by positioning himself straight behind the ball.

Opinion amongst gamers was divided on the penalty, with some disagreeing whereas others supported the LIV Golf star, as DeChambeau thought-about pulling out of the match at Royal Birkdale following missed cuts on the 12 months’s first three majors.

He had surged to outright second on the leaderboard with a four-under spherical on Friday however slipped to tied for fifth earlier than the third spherical commenced due to the R&A ruling. Meanwhile, Rory McIlroy delivered a scathing interview criticizing his “performative” competitor.

Two-time main champion Rahm acknowledged he believed it was a violation, although he required further video proof.

“We were the group behind, so I was aware when we got to scoring,” mentioned Rahm. “I can tell you, I’ve heard there’s multiple angles. I’ve only seen the face-on one. So I can’t really give you an idea.

“For people who’ve seen all the photographs, I feel the consensus is that, though it wasn’t intentional, it was an infraction. That’s what I perceive, however I have not seen. I suppose there’s a down the road shot that I have not seen. I could not inform you.

“What I saw face-on to me wasn’t enough for me to draw a conclusion. I wish I could tell you more. If you have the video, I’ll see it, but I haven’t seen it.”

Rahm and DeChambeau rank amongst LIV Golf’s largest stars, and the Spaniard suspects the two-stroke penalty may inspire the 32-year-old.

“There are some players that do really well when they have some, let’s say some extra going on off the course,” Rahm mentioned.

“Some of his better performances this year in Singapore and South Africa, he had — and I don’t know the extent of it — quite a bit going on off of course, quite a bit.

“Some of these issues, one of them — I feel it was more than one, however one of them that I realized, I would not want on anyone, and he was in a position to carry out extremely nicely with a lot of added additional, as an instance, noise and distraction.

“It’s a lot easier to do in a regular event rather than an Open Championship when he thought he was going to go to sleep one shot back and finds himself three shots back.

“He appears to be doing simply fantastic. Last I checked, he was at 6-under.” DeChambeau accomplished his third spherical one-under at Royal Birkdale.