Masters 2026: Bryson DeChambeau’s homemade club, used once, can’t help him escape a deep hole after Day 1

AUGUSTA, Ga. — One year ago, Bryson DeChambeau held the solo lead at the Masters on Sunday. After his very next round at Augusta National, he was nine strokes behind the clubhouse leader, looking for answers from an unforgiving course. And not even his homemade club could keep his card clean.

DeChambeau finished his first day at the 2026 Masters at 4-over, far behind clubhouse leaders Sam Burns and Rory McIlroy (-5). After his round, a visibly frustrated DeChambeau nonetheless spoke to the media. His normally analytical mind was spinning its wheels in mud, trying to figure out how everything had gone so wrong so quickly.

“Everybody has an ability for weird things to happen,” DeChambeau said in a short postround interview, “and today I just did not have my irons under control, which is weird.”

Bryson DeChambeau watches his tee shot on the 12th hole during the first round of the Masters golf tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

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DeChambeau held at even par through the first 10 holes of the day, erasing an early bogey on 2 with a birdie on the very next hole. But he was clearly holding on desperately to a rattling train, and at the 11th, the train jumped the tracks.

After a strong drive, DeChambeau’s approach found a greenside bunker, and he needed three shots to get out. He walked off the hole with a round- (and possibly tournament-) killing triple bogey. “Bunker was softer than I anticipated,” was all he said afterward.

A closing bogey left him at +4 on the day, and he exhaled heavily as he walked from the 18th green to the scorer’s building.

One of the more fascinating stories of the practice side of Masters week was DeChambeau’s admission that he’d be using a literally homemade club in his bag this week — a 3D-printed five-iron. He used it only once Thursday, flying the green on the seventh hole and punching out of the bunker to save par.

While bringing a homemade golf club to the Masters seems like wheeling up Magnolia Lane on a loud Harley, there’s sound science behind what DeChambeau is doing. Plus, each club needs to meet certain USGA criteria to ensure it’s a proper fit. DeChambeau noted that the club takes about eight hours to print; full completion to USGA-conforming specs takes about a day and a half.

DeChambeau won’t tee off on Friday until 1:20 p.m., and by then the leaders may well be double-digits ahead of him. Winning may be out of reach this year, but DeChambeau will need to figure out what went so wrong Thursday if he wants to win someday.