When Sir Nick Faldo steps behind a microphone, he does so with the authority of a man who made the cut in his first 23 Open Championship appearances and captured three Claret Jugs. Speaking on the Sky Sports Golf podcast ahead of the 154th Open at Royal Birkdale, the 68-year-old Hall of Famer targeted Bryson DeChambeau's aggressive approach to links golf, offering a stark assessment of the two-time U.S. Open champion's major championship slump.
He has—I'd say it to his face—he has zero clue of strategy,
Faldo told the podcast. Pointing to DeChambeau's stated intention from the previous year to go out and attack the links,
Faldo rejected the concept outright. Well, I've never 'attacked' a links. You thread it, don't you? You feed it down the fairway, it's really important. You look at humps and bumps and think, if I send it over and feed it, it nudges back into play. You don't think 'oh, I'll just bomb it down there, can't see where I'm going, it's 20 yards wide.'
The Major Slump and the Royal Portrush Precedent
DeChambeau's arrival at Royal Birkdale follows an uncharacteristic 2026 major campaign. Unlike his strong 2025 season—which included victories on the LIV Golf circuit in Singapore and South Africa, alongside a tied-for-tenth finish at The Open following an opening-round 78 at Royal Portrush—DeChambeau has missed the cut at all three majors this year: The Masters, the PGA Championship, and the U.S. Open.
Despite those struggles in the game's premier events, the 32-year-old American has remained productive elsewhere, securing two victories and three top-three finishes on the LIV Golf circuit. Yet his reliance on distance and raw power—epitomized by his assertion that his driver would be the key weapon at Royal Portrush—has continually drawn skepticism from traditionalists who favor the architectural nuance of firm fairways, blind run-offs, and ground-game calculations.
Machining the Response: 3D-Printed Irons at Royal Birkdale
Rather than engaging in a war of words, DeChambeau answered the critique through his trademark analytical laboratory. Speaking to Live At The Range on Monday, the player known as the 'Mad Scientist' revealed a fresh technological adjustment for Royal Birkdale: a brand-new set of 3D-printed irons featuring redesigned grooves.
This is a tough golf course; I like it. It really tests every facet of your game,
DeChambeau said. I've got new irons in the bag. They were 3D-printed. They take about an hour to print. From machining and printing and all the different processes we make. It's cool with my irons; they're spinning out of the rough more consistently. It's a new set of irons with different grooves. We've already sent them to the USGA.
Addressing his turbulent major season, DeChambeau expressed confidence in his underlying form. On a course like this, if I feel good I know I can give myself a chance. I know I haven't had the best results this year, but I've won twice, and top-three'd three times. Just a couple of weird things happening at the majors. If it goes well for me this week, great. If it doesn't, I'll keep moving on and creating as much as I can,
he noted.
The Links Paradigm: Working Backwards from the Green
The philosophical divide between Faldo and DeChambeau highlights two fundamentally different ways to solve a championship links. Faldo emphasized that proper links strategy requires working backward from the putting surface, utilizing natural contours and downslopes.
You look for all the downslopes because you don't have to hit the driver. You can twang your 1-iron or a 3-wood,
Faldo explained. You hit it on the downslope, it scoots forward, you get an extra 30 yards of run. There's no need to put yourself under pressure to hit the fairway with your driver. You've just got to think like that. That's the priority when playing links golf.
As Royal Birkdale prepares to host the world's best, the tension between old-school course management and modern analytical power gives the final men's major of the year a compelling narrative edge. Whether DeChambeau's new 3D-printed irons and high-velocity strategy can finally puncture his major drought—or validate Faldo's warnings about the perils of bombing blindly into 20-yard-wide fairways—will unfold across four days of rugged English links testing.
Sources
These sources formed the evidence pack for this article. Links open the original publisher; inclusion does not imply endorsement.
- www.skysports.com original
- www.foxnews.com original
- golfpost.de original
- www.golfdigest.com original
- ESPN original
