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Bryson DeChambeau Starts Ryder Cup By Delivering Monster Tee Shot As Crowd Goes Wild

What a scene to begin Friday's play.

Kyle Koster

Bryson DeChambeau provided electricity to the Ryder Cup Crowd
Bryson DeChambeau provided electricity to the Ryder Cup Crowd / Peter Casey-Imagn Images

There was only one way for the Ryder Cup to begin Friday morning at Bethpage Black and that was fan favorite Bryson DeChambeau striding up to the first tee and absolutely blasting a monster drive as thousands of fans lent their enthusiastic support.

[Ryder Cup 2025 Live — Latest Scores, Schedule, News from Day 1 at Bethpage]

So he did just that. And in typical dramatic DeChambeau fashion, he attempted to make a major statement by going for the green on the 397-yard par-4.

That's a rocket.

Hard to think of anything that would have gotten the already riled-up home crowd more fired up right out of the gate. Perhaps if DeChambeau had approached the tee box with an American eagle on his shoulders. There's still plenty of weekend left for that to happen.

Again, this mighty display of power came with the sun barely up so the atmosphere is only going to get more raucous—especially if the United States plays well early.

DeChambeau's tee shot set he and teammate Justin Thomas up to win hole No. 1 against the European side of Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton.

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Kyle Koster
KYLE KOSTER

Kyle Koster is an assistant managing editor at Sports Illustrated covering the intersection of sports and media. He was formerly the editor in chief of The Big Lead, where he worked from 2011 to '24. Koster also did turns at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he created the Sports Pros(e) blog, and at Woven Digital.

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