Bryson DeChambeau savaged over 'stupid' complaint at British Open

Bryson DeChambeau has been slammed after using his manufacturer as an excuse for a poor one-over par First Round at the 149th Open Championship at Royal St George's.

The 2020 US Open champion has been a divisive figure in the golf world after his numerous outbursts, analytical approach to the game and feud with fellow American Brooks Koepka.

'REALLY BAD': Aussie golfers in 'horrific' chaos at British Open

'THIS IS NUTS': Golf world stunned by 'disgusting' incident

'COMPLETELY LOST IT': Phil Mickelson in ugly meltdown at US Open

But, the man nicknamed 'The scientist' blamed his tools overnight after hitting just four fairways on his way to a 71 at the British Open.

His fairways-hit percentage of 28.5 per cent was about half of the field average but DeChambeau said the fault was with the biggest club in the bag.

"If I can hit it down the middle of the fairway, that's great, but with the driver right now, the driver sucks," the American said in frustration.

DeChambeau recovered from a two-over front nine with three successive birdies from the 12th only to let things slip with two more dropped shots after finding trouble off the tee again.

Club manufacturers Cobra, who designed the driver with a 46-inch shaft and only five degrees of loft specifically for DeChambeau, did not take kindly to the comments, calling it "stupid".

"Everybody is bending over backwards," Cobra's tour operations manager Ben Schomin, who caddied for the player at the Rocket Mortgage Classic a fortnight ago, told Golfweek.

"We've got multiple guys in R&D (research and development) who are CAD'ing (compute-aided design) this and CAD-ing that, trying to get this and that into the pipeline faster. (Bryson) knows it.

"It's just really, really painful when he says something that stupid. He has never really been happy, ever.

"It's like an eight-year-old that gets mad at you. They might fly off the handle and say, 'I hate you', but then you go, 'Whoa, no you don't.'

"We know as adults that they really don't mean that and I know that if I got him cornered right now and said, 'What the hell did you say that for?' he would say that he was mad.

"He didn't really mean to say it that harshly. He knows how much everyone bends over backwards for him, but it's still not cool."

Bryson DeChambeau apologises to Cobra

DeChambeau later apologised for his comments.

The American said his comments were 'unprofessional' and that it was his performance that 'sucked'.

"It's not a good face for me and we're still trying to figure out how to make it good on the mishits," he said.

"I've realised this for years now. It's literally the physics and the way that they build heads now.

"It's not the right design, unfortunately, and we've been trying to fix it.

"I'm living on the razor's edge. When I did get it outside of the fairway, like in the first cut, I catch jumpers out of there and I couldn't control my wedges."

Louis Oosthuizen posted a bogey-free, six-under-par 64 to take the first round lead, one shot better than Americans Jordan Spieth and Brian Harman.

with AAP

Watch 'Mind Games', the new series from Yahoo Sport Australia exploring the often brutal mental toil elite athletes go through in pursuit of greatness:

Click here to sign up to our newsletter for all the latest and breaking stories from Australia and around the world.