Bryson DeChambeau opened the 2026 PGA Championship the way he opened the 2026 Masters: badly. His 6-over 76 at Aronimink Golf Club on Thursday is the worst score to par he has carded in a single PGA Championship round, and it left the LIV Golf star tied for 120th in a 156-player field with only eight players beneath him on the leaderboard.
The shape of the round was the strange part. DeChambeau averaged 335.7 yards off the tee — longer than any other player in his wave — and the driver, normally his most volatile club, behaved. The problems came after the ball stopped rolling.
DeChambeau lost 3.672 strokes around the green and 1.098 strokes putting, per the PGA Championship's official ShotLink summary. His short game, the area he has spent a year sharpening on LIV practice ranges, simply did not turn up. By the time he made his only birdie of the round — a four on the par-5 9th, his closing hole after starting on No. 10 — he had already piled up five bogeys and a double bogey on the par-3 8th.
The round arrives just over a month after DeChambeau's similarly rough Masters opener, when a triple bogey on the par-4 11th set the tone for a 76 that finished with a missed cut. The pattern in both cases has been the same: tee shots fine, recovery game and putter in disarray.
DeChambeau has been candid throughout 2026 about being caught between two priorities — chasing majors and building out the YouTube channel that has become his second professional career. On the eve of this PGA Championship, his agent reportedly warned him to dial back the camera time during tournament weeks. Thursday's round suggests the broader problem is mechanical, not motivational.
The 6-over score also sat awkwardly against the rest of Aronimink. Six players were already in the clubhouse at 3-under — Aldrich Potgieter, Stephan Jaeger, Min Woo Lee, Ryo Hisatsune, Martin Kaymer and Justin Thomas — and even with thick rough, tucked pins and a stiff afternoon breeze, scoring at the top showed Aronimink could be solved.
DeChambeau's task on Friday is brutal but clear: he is nine shots back of the lead, and at -3, the cut line is closer to even than to red figures, which means a second-day 76 sends him home. He has done it before — he missed the cut at Augusta National in April, and at the U.S. Open in 2023 — but each time, the diagnosis afterwards has been about the short game rather than power.
The LIV setup, with three-round events and no cuts, has shielded DeChambeau from these specific moments. Major championships do not. Aronimink's first round delivered the verdict the leaderboard at LIV Virginia last week did not — he is still hitting it longer than just about anyone in the game, and around the greens, it is costing him more strokes than the distance is winning him.
DeChambeau heads back out on Friday morning chasing a number under 70 not for contention, but for the cut. The two-time U.S. Open champion's PGA Championship record has been steadily strong over the past five seasons. Thursday's 76 broke that line clean.