‘Give the fans what they want!’ Bryson DeChambeau calls out Tiger Woods with surprise offer

Bryson DeChambeau has a big idea for a showdown against Tiger Woods…

Never accuse Bryson DeChambeau of failing to think outside the box.

Ahead of LIV Golf’s first tournament in South Africa, the two-time US Open champion has called out Tiger Woods’ TGL team for a made-for-TV clash against his Crushers GC side.

DeChambeau, who has made the Crushers the most commercially viable franchise on LIV by leveraging his huge YouTube audience over the past three years, believes golf has barely scratched the surface when it comes to maximising team formats.

“I guess we’re an individual sport – I understand that,” he said. “But we do play team events. We’ve got the Ryder Cup. We’ve got the Presidents Cup. There should be something else. Why not?”

DeChambeau floated the idea of his Crushers coming up against Woods’ Jupiter Links team from his indoor TGL league when asked how golf could create the best possible fan-focused product.

“I do think there’s an opportunity in the future for team golf to be next to the forefront of golf, even with the majors and whatnot,” DeChambeau said. “I do think at some point we can get close. It’ll never be a major, obviously, but having team golf rivalries, whether it’s just the Crushers vs. Southern Guards or whatnot, is great.

“But imagine a scenario where we’re going up against Jupiter Links on an 18-hole showcase, 4 vs. 4, going up against each other on a Netflix show or something, or whoever wants to put it on a show. How about the Crushers goes up against Jupiter Links in an 18-hole match, 4 vs. 4 stroke play. We can just call them out right now and say, ‘Let’s go. Let’s do it.’

“That would be fun. Show them who’s the best, who’s the best team in the world, or any of them. LA, it doesn’t matter. We’d go up against them. Jon Rahm’s team, we’d all go up against them. How great would that be for golf, too, by the way?

“I think there’s a lot of opportunity for teams to go up against teams in the future that could be a big growing-the-game moment for people who have never played the game, watching and just tuning in. Maybe they don’t ever play the game, but they tune in, just like football.

“Only about two million people play football, but there are over 50 million that watch every week. In golf, it’s almost the opposite, where you’re getting 3-5 million people watching a week on various tours, and you can add it together, and those aren’t the perfect numbers, but you know what I mean. Then there are probably 50 to 60 million people playing the game.

“So it’s the complete opposite of football. So we don’t have just people randomly watching and enjoying golf. I think there’s an opportunity for the world to see the game for what it could be, which is rivalries and teams against teams.”

There have, of course, been times when golf has tried to commercialise its rivalries. DeChambeau was beaten by his long-standing Brooks Koepka in an iteration of ‘The Match’ in 2021 and played alongside the American in a LIV-PGA Tour style showdown with Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy in 2024.

DeChambeau, however, thinks the game is still selling itself short.

“There’s always been rivalries, like Brooks and I and even Rory [McIlroy] and I,” he said. “There’s a bit of that there. But what I’m saying is we’re all competitive.

“One way to do that, since there’s already internal built-up rivalries in the game right now, whether it’s the PGA [Tour] or LIV or TGL and LIV, let’s give the fans what they want. It’s time. It’s been too long.”