The Loneliness of Being Bryson DeChambeau

Prior to missing the cut in the 2026 PGA Championship, Bryson DeChambeau was a guest on the Katie Miller podcast, where the two-time U.S. Open winner sat down to discuss a wide array of subjects. The episode was released this week and, as is frequently the case with DeChambeau, gave some insight into his worldview while also stirring up bits of controversy. We have already lived through several iterations of this news cycle, and it is a valuable exercise if you want to understand DeChambeau. I listened so you do not have to.

Fans of DeChambeau tend to get upset when his political associations bleed into discussions about his golf game, so rest assured, we’ll mostly avoid discussion of that here. Miller has worked in Republican politics for a decade and is married to White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller. Her podcast is almost exclusively political, so of course there were several forays into politics. But the discussions about DeChambeau’s role as the chair of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition, or his anecdotes about playing golf with President Trump, were far less revealing than the obvious undercurrent of the interview.

Bryson is struggling to figure out what he wants out of this life.

He has figured out how to win golf tournaments. He has figured out how to become famous. But neither of those pursuits has been ultimately fulfilling. As such, he is torn about what path to take next, and it is only partially about what to do if LIV Golf goes away. He is 32 years old and facing a genuine crossroads.

“I'm in that weird space right now, I don't know what to do, either: Content creation or professional golf,” DeChambeau said. “I don't know what to do right now.”

You can call that armchair psychoanalysis, but it’s all right there in the interview. DeChambeau’s admission that he believes footage of the 1969 moon landing was either faked or doctored ended up being the most viral moment from the podcast. “I think we did [go to the moon],” DeChambeau said. “I don’t think the footage is real, but I think we did go to the moon. I don’t know about the footage, it’s quite wild.”

If you watch the interview in full, however, it’s clear that DeChambeau is actually wrestling with a force bigger than any global conspiracy. He has millions of followers, billions of impressions, and plenty of money.

He still feels a little lonely.

The whole interview is meant to be playful and fun. And at times, it is. DeChambeau talks about his interest in artificial intelligence, in building his own golf equipment company, about how much he dislikes pickles. But there is a hint of sadness in much of it.

“Is it hard to date when you’re this famous?” Miller asks at one point.

“It’s near impossible for sure,” DeChambeau says. “Too many things going on. But as I’m 32, it’s time. I want a family soon.”

DeChambeau initially tried to steer Miller away from prying further into his dating life. But Miller, to her credit, pressed him on whether he has trust issues with his male friends. Did he ever feel like people wanted to hang out with him, not because they liked him, but because he was famous?

“Oh yeah, my trust gets crossed quite a bit,” DeChambeau said. “For sure.”

Some of the people who work personally with him have to sign non-disclosure agreements, he said. Just the nature of being famous and having to protect yourself.

Later on, Miller pressed DeChambeau for his theory on why the global birth rate is declining. I almost laughed out loud, imagining conservative journalist Phyllis Schlafly posing similar questions to, say, Arnold Palmer about birth control in the 1960s. But DeChambeau ended up giving one of the interview’s most interesting answers. He can frequently come across as nonsensical when it comes to mixing physics principles with his theories on golf club design, but his insight into modern dating felt surprisingly perceptive.

“I think a little more knowledge around divorce rates [would help],” DeChambeau said. “It scares a lot of people. I know it scared me for the longest time, that’s why I’m 32 with no kids. I’ve got friends who are 23 and have kids. I can only take it from personal experience, I’m not going to put it on the world, but for me it was more scared of getting divorced. I want to find the right person, the right partner. And with so many options out there, it wasn’t like in the old times where you didn’t have communication with the outside world. Let’s say you’re in a small town. Those are your options. The amount of people you have is the amount of people you get to choose from. I think the decisions are a lot easier back then. Whereas now, we’re on Instagram, we’re on TikTok, we’re on all these places. You see these girls, you see these people, you get to talk to them, message them, ultimately we just have these options. And people get confused on what they want, and what they want to have. So it’s technology, and also the trauma of getting divorced.”

It’s easy to make fun of DeChambeau. Plenty of people do, myself occasionally among them. But I was reminded, watching his interview, that he is wrestling not just with the alienation of fame, but the alienation of technology, the same way millions of nonfamous people his age are.

It’s easy to gain followers. But real connection — not unlike the moon landing — is impossible to fake.