Negotiations collapsed, but the real story is scalability, physics, and what brands get out of building gear for 130 mph swings.
There’s a familiar feel to the news that Bryson DeChambeau and LA Golf have gone their separate ways.
While rumors swirled on social media over the weekend, according to a Golf.com story written by Michael Bamberger, the relationship ended after DeChambeau’s business advisor said the two-time U.S. Open winner, who already owned two percent of LA Golf, wanted to increase his share to 51 percent or he’d leave the brand. That created an impasse that Reed Dickens, LA Golf’s founder, felt was too large to overcome, and the two sides parted.
“They played chicken with me, and now we’re going to graciously part ways,” Dickens said.
Bryson is no longer an ambassador for the brand, though he remains a customer.
If that sounds like a business disagreement, it is. But it’s also something more predictable than dramatic.
When I read the story, I was reminded of the moment at the 2021 British Open when DeChambeau said a driver Cobra had worked hard to build for him “sucks,” and how he and Cobra ultimately parted ways in December 2022. That episode wasn’t just about frustration after a bad day on the course. It revealed something fundamental about working with DeChambeau: the collaboration is intense, inventive and often productive, but it also pushes companies to the outer edge of what’s commercially rational and justifiable.
The physics matter here.
Bryson swings as fast, if not faster, than just about any professional golfer out there. And, with his love of science and tinkering, he demands more than just a 5-degree driver head. When he swings his driver at 130 miles per hour, it does not behave like one swung by a recreational golfer, whose speed is often between 80 and 90 mph. At Bryson’s speeds, the shaft bends and twists under dramatically higher loads. The face experiences greater strain at impact, deflecting and recovering dynamically. Even compared to a 108 or 110 mile-per-hour swing, the forces are radically different.
To survive that, a brand has to build a club for DeChambeau that is reinforced, stiffened or overbuilt in ways it never would for a retail product. That can mean different materials, altered internal structures, thicker sections or different weight distributions. For a company like LA Golf or Cobra, it’s a bit like what Ferrari or Mercedes does when engineering a Formula One car. The lessons are fascinating, and there is glory in victory, but the ultimate reason why you do it is to take what you learn on the track and have it trickle down to what you sell in showrooms.
And with Bryson DeChambeau, that’s where the tension lies: When you build for the outer edge of the bell curve and cater to his every demand, you’re no longer designing for everyone. If there isn’t enough trickle-down, what’s the point?
The average golfer will never swing like Bryson. And frankly, while fans love to watch him bomb it, when it comes to their own gear, golfers outside the ropes only care about three things: Will this club help me hit it farther? Will it help me hit it straighter? Will it help me shoot lower scores and have more fun?
That’s the balance every equipment company must manage.
“Bryson needs someone serving him 24 hours a day. He needs somebody to build him his own clubs, and that’s not scalable for us,” Dickens told Golf.com. It echoes what Cobra’s Ben Schomin said in 2022, “Everybody is bending over backwards. We’ve got multiple guys in R&D who are CAD’ing (computer-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.”
Bryson brings visibility (he has 2.6 million subscribers on YouTube and 4.3 million followers on Instagram), energy and genuine intellectual curiosity. His involvement elevated LA Golf’s profile beyond a niche shaft brand. He gave them sizzle, relevance and more buzz than the brand received from signing Dustin Johnson or Michelle Wie West.
But R&D is expensive. Durability testing at extreme speeds is expensive. Prototypes are expensive. If those investments don’t translate into products that thousands (not dozens) of golfers can buy, the math gets uncomfortable.
The reported ownership standoff makes the business logic clearer. If DeChambeau wanted majority control, that suggests a desire to steer the company more directly toward his vision. That vision may be innovative. It may be fascinating. It may even be technically brilliant. But it also may not scale.
From a founder’s perspective, that’s a crossroads. Does the brand become one player’s laboratory, or does it remain a broader equipment company serving a much larger market?
For Dickens, walking away doesn’t seem emotional. It feels like math.
Bryson operates at the extreme edge of performance. Most golfers live somewhere much closer to the middle. There’s room in the game for both, but building a business around one person without losing sight of the masses is one of the hardest balancing acts in the golf equipment business.
And sometimes, when the forces get too high, on or off the course, something has to give.