If you were hoping for a bizarre, somewhat salacious Bryson DeChambeau story to tide you over until next week’s Open Championship, you’re in luck. This one features broken relationships, a “disgruntled employee” and an alleged multi-million “extortion” scheme.
It comes to us thanks to reporting from Golfweek’s Adam Schupak. The story is complex, and you should read Schupak’s accounting in full to absorb all the details. But here are some highlights.
The wild tale starts with golf instructor Mike Schy, who was one of DeChambeau’s first teachers during his California youth and worked with the now two-time U.S. Open champion until 2018.
In 2023, Schy approached DeChambeau about creating a series of affordable junior golf tournaments, which, at DeChambeau’s suggestion, they named the Jon DeChambeau Memorial Junior Tour after Bryson’s late father.
According to Schupak’s report, Schy put on a successful series of test events in 2023, and when DeChambeau asked what money they would need for the next season, Schy told him “$125,000 for two years.” Schy claimed DeChambeau said he would provide the funding via a “a non-recourse loan,” which is when things started to get messy.
DeChambeau’s agent, Brett Falkoff, told Schupak that Schy didn’t properly set up the 501-C3 organization in California for the tour, which was missing appropriate bylaws, nor had he provided a viable business plan.
Schy claimed that was a sign that DeChambeau didn’t want to support the tour at all.
“I know Bryson and I knew he didn’t really want to give the money,” Schy told Golfweek. “And I certainly knew he didn’t want to give it for a long period of time.”
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DeChambeau’s lawyers then drafted and revised the necessary bylaws at DeChambeau’s expense, and just before the 2024 U.S. Open began they prepared “a line of credit to facilitate the funding had been prepared.”
But with events set to begin in June, and without hearing from DeChambeau, Schy “decided to go nuclear,” according to Falkoff.
Schy shuttered the junior tour, and he announced the decision along with a series of sharp criticisms of DeChambeau in an Instagram post, writing in part, “Bryson stated how much he hates non profits and would only loan money to his father’s name sake and needed to make money on it. Yet even that never came close to materializing and the longer it took the more uncomfortable myself and others were with taking on debt. Needless to say I am very disappointed and I’m sure his father would have been disappointed as well.”
In a phone conversation with Golfweek, DeChambeau claimed Schy tried to extort DeChambeau and his team for $2 million following DeChambeau’s U.S. Open win in June. He also offered his side of the story, calling Schy’s claim “a complete and utter lie.” (Schy didn’t dispute that he asked for a payout, telling Golfweek that he felt it was time to look out for himself.)
“It’s a disgruntled former employee, unfortunately, and it is what it is,” DeChambeau told Golfweek. “We’ve had numerous conversations and it hasn’t worked out from a business standpoint. “It’s quite disappointing how he’s turned this and spun this. It’s a non-recourse loan that was going out. I gave him my dad’s name, image and likeness for free on the assumption we’d have a good business plan and it just hasn’t worked out. I’m going to be doing a lot for my community, just in a different fashion with a proper business plan and done correctly.”
DeChambeau also noted that his decision was not about the money, but about how the money would be spent.
“I can give that money tomorrow. The point is I want to make it sustainable,” DeChambeau told Golfweek. “I don’t want to be divvying out money and giving it away fruitlessly. He said I hate non-profits, no, I said I hate the way they are usually run. That’s what I actually said. Everything I said is misconstrued and twisted in a way that is absolutely false.”
DeChambeau is playing in the LIV Golf Andalucia event in Spain this week, but the topic wasn’t broached in his pre-tournament press conference.
The squabble is sure to be raised in questions early next week when DeChambeau sits down with the media ahead of the 2024 Open Championship at Royal Troon.
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