Bryson DeChambeau and Rory McIlroy are in Las Vegas for the Crypto.com Showdown, which happens at Shadow Creek Golf Course on December 17.
DeChambeau and McIlroy will be on opposite sides in team-based match, with DeChambeau teaming up with Brooks Koepka in the LIV Golf contingent, while McIlroy partners up with world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler. They'll play an 18-hole exhibition match in primetime for a reported $10 million purse.
In preparing for the event, the four players appeared at the Shadow Creek range on Monday, and the group was hitting balls as part of a demonstration and exhibition for a small crowd.
McIlroy was talking to the onlookers when he said, “I’d like to go up against Bryson and try to get him back for what he did to me at the U.S. Open.”
DeChambeau, who wound up winning the US Open for his second-career major, had a quick, witty reply: “To be fair, you kind of did it to yourself.”
The trash talking already starting at Shadow Creek 😅#LIVGolf pic.twitter.com/zB0bM3gWCn
— LIV Golf (@livgolf_league) December 16, 2024
McIlroy had the lead late in the back nine at Pinehurst No. 2, but then he made bogey on three of the final four holes, including missing several putts inside five feet, to cost himself a fifth-career major title.
For his part, DeChambeau applied pressure the whole way, including hitting an all-time bunker shot from 40 yards to just a few feet for what was the tournament-winning par. McIlroy was criticized in some online circles for not speaking to the press after the tournament ended, quickly leaving Pinehurst. McIlroy's scoring-room reactions became memes.
The Ulsterman four-time major winner didn't have much of a reply for DeChambeau's zinger. McIlroy said, “I don’t really know where to go from there.”
