Smylie Kaufman has commented on what he thinks will happen if Bryson DeChambeau attempts to only play YouTube golf and compete in the major championships.
DeChambeau’s future is extremely uncertain. His current contract with LIV Golf expires at the end of this season.
He flirted with the idea of leaving shortly after Brooks Koepka’s departure was announced. It did appear to be a potential negotiating tactic, with the 32-year-old holding out for an eye-watering sum to re-sign.
The problem for DeChambeau is that the days of LIV paying out astronomical figures appear to be over, with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia set to withdraw their financial support after this season.
Smylie Kaufman comments on the idea of Bryson DeChambeau playing YouTube golf full-time
DeChambeau returning to the PGA Tour is far from guaranteed. In fact, the Crushers captain has hinted that he could be prepared to focus solely on his YouTube channel outside of playing the four majors.
It would be a huge gamble for DeChambeau to not play on an elite tour for the large majority of the year.
And speaking on The Smylie Show, Smylie Kaufman insisted that he cannot see any way that DeChambeau can remain competitive in the four biggest events of the year while concentrating on YouTube.
“I think of Bryson’s early days and just how his whole image was the hat, the Ben Hogan hat. So you think about a guy who’s deemed the mad scientist when he was in the college game and when he got to the professional game, and how he did things differently, this one plane swing and how he was able to feel like he was figuring out the game of golf where everybody else was still trying to figure it out. He legit, I think, thinks he had all the answers,” he said.
“When we think about Bryson DeChambeau and his future in this game, it just seems like we would be robbed of a guy who feels like he’s got a lot to offer in this game, as far as chasing history. And I think he’s got enough talent to be able to chase as much history as he wants to. It’s going to require him to compete against the best players in the world. You can’t just go and play YouTube golf and play against these guys in major championships thinking you can win, without playing enough professional golf events.
“I just think if he’s serious about his ultimate legacy in the game, as he comes on touting the whole Ben Hogan hat and this was a guy who was his idol, if he would have read books about Ben Hogan, he would have known that Ben Hogan was the toughest SOB in the world, and his comeback story was one of the best we’ve ever seen.
“I wouldn’t say the comeback story from YouTube golf to professional golf is quite the same as getting in a car accident like Ben Hogan did, but I still feel like Bryson has a lot to offer this game from the professional side. I wouldn’t want to see him go to the YouTube game full-time. I’d like to see him playing, if it’s on the LIV tour, great, that’s fine.
“I just don’t want to see him go full YouTube, because I do think from an overall professional standpoint in the game of golf, he’ll drop if he just wants to chase that. He will not be a top player in the world if he just wants to do that. And I don’t want to see that.”
DeChambeau’s major results this year act as a clear warning
DeChambeau only needs to look at his results this year to realise that playing on YouTube will almost certainly do him no favours in the four majors.
He has been good enough to win twice on LIV Golf. And yet, he has gone on to miss the cut at both The Masters and the PGA Championship.
LIV comes in for a lot of justified criticism, but the league is clearly a lot stronger than anything he would face on YouTube.
If LIV is not preparing DeChambeau for the major championship tests, then it is hard to see how he is going to be able to get ready by focusing his energy on YouTube golf.
Having said that, DeChambeau would probably relish the challenge of seeing whether he could become the first full-time YouTube golfer to win a major.
