Why Is Bryson DeChambeau Not At The Olympics?

Bryson DeChambeau has enjoyed a superb year in golf, winning his second US Open in June having almost pipped Xander Schauffele to the post at May's PGA Championship.

His Masters tilt wasn't bad, either, remaining in contention throughout the week before slightly wilting on Sunday to end in a tie for sixth. On the flip side, a disappointing missed cut at The Open was an anomaly compared with the rest of his 2024.

In the LIV Golf League, DeChambeau has finished in the top-10 six times from 11 starts and has led his Crushers GC to the top of the team standings so far after a couple of squad successes early on.

Nevertheless, the 30-year-old did not make Team USA's four-man Olympic golf squad for the 60-player field at Paris 2024. The reason for this is simply because he did not qualify.

Olympic qualification was carried out across a two-year period which ended on June 17. Each OWGR-eligible event offered up points which ultimately fed into an average score at the culmination of the qualifying window.

Given LIV's inability to offer world-ranking points as part of its tournaments, that greatly limited DeChambeau's chance of accumulating OGR points and meant he needed to cash in at the Majors if he stood any chance - a fact that was criticized by Carlos Ortiz in his pre-Olympic press conference.

The other significant issue in the two-time Major champion's way was that he represents the strongest golfing country - certainly in the men's game - on the planet.

A maximum of four golfers per nation inside the world's top-15 were eligible to compete at Le Golf National this week. After that, a maximum of two competitors per nation outside of the world's top-15 could qualify, so long as that country did not already have at least two players inside the OWGR's top bracket.

On Team USA, World No.1 Scottie Scheffler, was joined by Xander Schauffele (then-World No.3), Wyndham Clark (World No.5), and Collin Morikawa (World No.7) as DeChambeau and World No.8 Patrick Cantlay agonizingly missed out.

After failing to fulfil his Olympic dream in France, DeChambeau wrote on social media to say that "nothing would mean more to me than putting on the red, white, and blue for Team USA at the Olympics."

Later speaking to Pat McAfee about the subject, the Californian acknowledged that his place in the LIV Golf League did not help but hopes that men's pro golf will reunite before LA 2028 in order for him to have a much better chance of qualifying.

DeChambeau said: "Hopefully, one day, this game of golf will get figured out and come back together, and I'll be able to play.

"I'm playing great golf. I'm excited. Am I frustrated and disappointed? Sure you could absolutely say that, but I made the choices that I made and there's consequences to that and I respect it.

"But, hopefully, it's sooner rather than later we figure out this great game of golf, so we can get past all of that and move forward into showing how awesome this sport actually is around the globe."

Although DeChambeau did not make it, seven LIV golfers did qualify for the Olympics and will fly the flag for both their country and the PIF-backed circuit in France.

But, in his pre-tournament press conference at Le Golf National, Rory McIlroy - who is representing Team Ireland at the Olympic Games - admitted he held little sympathy for those LIV golfers who did not make it.

McIlroy said: "I don't think there's any other way to do [Olympic qualification] because it's hard to compare the golf that they play to the golf that we play. That's the reason they didn't get World Ranking points, right?

"So if you want to qualify for the Olympics, you knew what you had to do. Just like if you wanted to qualify for the Ryder Cup, you knew what you had to do. They were very aware of the decision they made when they did."

The Olympic golf men's tournament starts on Thursday, August 1 after the first and second-round tee times were released on Tuesday.