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OAKMONT, Pa. — Bryson DeChambeau will be defending his U.S. Open title this week at Oakmont Country Club, as he remains the most recent LIV Golf player to win a major championship.
“It’s been an amazing year,” DeChambeau said Tuesday afternoon. DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka, who won the 2023 PGA Championship, are the only two players to win a major as active members of LIV.
DeChambeau is still bullish on LIV, even as his contract is set to expire in 2026. “We’re looking to negotiate [at the] end of this year, and I’m very excited,” he said. “They see the value in me. I see the value in what they can provide, and I believe we’ll come to some sort of resolution on that.”
DeChambeau said his LIV team, Crushers GC, “has been EBIDTA positive for the past two years,” and that he still believes the league as a whole is a “viable commercial option.”
While DeChambeau lost some sponsors after he went to LIV, he now has a strong portfolio, including being the face of Reebok’s return to golf, with the brand sponsoring the entire Crushers team. “It’s almost freeing in a way, and it kind of was a reset to see who wanted to be around and who wanted to continue to support,” he said.
Playing the Field
DeChambeau is one of 14 LIV players in the U.S. Open this week, two more than there were last year, but one less than the 15 who teed it up in 2023 at Los Angeles Country Club. Half of them earned spots as recent major champions.
But earlier this year, the U.S. Open became the first major championship to create a special exemption category for LIV players. Joaquin Niemann earned the sole championship spot available as the top player who was not otherwise exempt and in the top three of the 2025 LIV Golf individual standings as of May 19. Niemann has won four LIV tournaments this season and $16.81 million in individual earnings.
The Open Championship (also known as the British Open) created a similar exemption category for LIV players after the U.S. Open. The Masters and PGA Championship have sent out special invites to players like Niemann in recent years.
The U.S. Open also granted an exemption into final qualifying to the top 10 LIV players as of April 7, 2025. Three LIV players—Marc Leishman, Carlos Ortiz, and Jinichiro Kozuma—earned U.S. Open spots via final qualifying.
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