Bryson DeChambeau and LA Golf are parting ways. Here’s why it didn’t work

I. THE WINTER MAKER

It turns out that this baseball quote, which has been making the rounds in the entertainment industry for half a century now, can apply to golf, too: “Nothing is as limited as George Steinbrenner’s limited partner.”

Not George Costanza’s boss Seinfeld. The real life George Steinbrenner, the most shocking and active recent owner of the New York Yankees.

For Reed Dickens, this is all familiar territory. Reed Dickens had a business manufacturing bats and before that he worked for a man who once owned a baseball team. (Texas Rangers, late Nolan Ryan.) For most of the past ten years Dickens has been the owner and CEO of LA Golf, a high-end shaft-and-club manufacturer in Southern California. But in the gears of the United States and beyond, Dickens is a backdrop to this LA story.

The real star here is Bryson A. DeChambeau, a former SMU physics student and star of LIV Golf, LA Golf’s club-making lab, where discussions between DeChambeau and Jeff Meyer, LA Golf’s lead engineer, can go on for hours as they talk about optical launch angles in different wind conditions, the golfer’s eyes burning with excitement.

When DeChambeau won the Covid-delayed 2020 US Open, he did it with 14 LA Golf shafts. The iron bars were about the same height and about as strong as the White House flagpole. Fans of golf’s main gear, watching this XXL golfer make his way through the famous West Course at Winged Foot, were all raving about Bryson’s shafts. Nobody was talking about Reed Dickens, understandably. It was DeChambeau who rolled 274, winning by a touchdown.

When DeChambeau won the 2024 US Open at Pinehurst, same thing: 14 clubs, 14 LA Golf shafts. He had the No. 2 that day, and that night he had the city. At the 2025 Masters, where he played the final round with eventual winner, Rory McIlroy, DeChambeau had 14 LA Golf shafts in his Crushers GC oversized green golf bag. DeChambeau mentioned LA Golf in the hat win.

Then last year, DeChambeau not only played LA Golf shafts but LA Golf heads, too. These heads are made in a very specific way, with a bumpy face and a bold and distinctive fold. DeChambeau all but wants bespoke clubs for his unique one-plane swing with its incredible speed, clubs that match his unique personality. The LA Golf driver line, which has DeChambeau’s fingerprints on its simple and sleek design, was introduced last year, and you can find them easily enough (with some help from Google). $600 good driver. You won’t find them at your local PGA Tour Superstore, but they are available at the pro shops at Discovery Golf’s swank properties, should you ever find yourself there. This is because the founder of Discovery, Michael Meldman, owns 11 percent of LA Golf.

LA Golf and Bryson DeChambeau. Sounds like a match made in golf heaven, right?

Turns out parties need a pre-nup.

The restless Bryson DeChambeau is on a roll as he explores all aspects of his golf and business life. His future with LIV Golf is unknown. Already, as a result of this review, the collateral damage report is: Bryson DeChambeau and LA Golf are a separate company.

In a phone interview Monday afternoon, Reed Dickens, speaking from his home in Newport Beach, Calif., said DeChambeau has made a pitch, using new business advisor Bryson, to become majority owner of LA Golf. Dickens, a 48-year-old native Louisianan and former CEO of baseball equipment company Marucci Sports, wasn’t worried about that. Turns out, in golf as in life, separation is hard to do.

“Bryson and I actually have the same tendencies, and I have nothing but respect for him,” Dickens said during the 90-minute interview. You couldn’t miss the intensity in Dickens that reminded DeChambeau. Dickens is a 10-year-old golfer at the Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles, and a regular on the 405 Freeway in Southern California. “But he has this new consultant, a McKinsey-consulting-type guy, and this guy says to me that Bryson is going to walk unless he gets 51 percent. Bryson has 2 percent of the company. And I don’t think the guy realizes that he’s dealing with a redneck. And I say, ‘No way.’ They are playing chicken with me, and now we will part ways amicably.”

Dickens has seen high stakes chess before. Horseshoes, too. In his 20s, he worked in the George W. Bush White House for four years as an assistant press secretary and campaign spokesman. More than once he went to Kennebunkport, Maine, with 43 and 41 both on the scene. The elder Bush was the starting pitcher at Yale. Young was the owner of Ranger. Dickens is neither a baseball nor a political guy but he found himself dabbling in both in his adult life.

“Bryson needs someone to work for him 24 hours a day, he needs someone to build his own teams, and that doesn’t bother us,” said Dickens. In other words, you can’t have a small, almost artistic business where one customer wants and gets a lot of attention. Dickens said his goal for LA Golf is to make quality equipment for golfers who want clubs that perform better than mishits, thanks to their bulge-and-roll face designs. All the while you want to simplify the shaft installation process. LA Golf’s website consists of a single page, a black and white golf picture with a single box to enter your email address. Callaway is not.

Dickens said LA Golf has “mostly” 75 employees but recently laid off 25 employees as the company moves from trying to be a high-end retail store with high-end retail accounts to a direct-to-golf company that makes specialty products only in the United States. He described his years with DeChambeau as one long R&D project, with DeChambeau making a major design contribution. “He challenges everything you do, and makes you examine everything you think about,” Dickens said. “But testing golf clubs with Bryson is like testing a Formula 1 engine in a minivan in the suburbs.”

Dickens was asked if the Nike Golf experience with Tiger Woods taught him anything.

“I think what Tiger and Nike teach you is this: The hardest and most expensive thing in consumer product marketing is unaided name recognition, to use a political phrase,” Dickens said. Nike, he said, already enjoyed a lot of name recognition outside of Tiger Woods and had a lot more with Tiger Woods. Nike Golf didn’t have, Dickens said, a range of products that the average golfer wanted to buy in bulk. Nike’s problem, he said, is that the public never really believed that the clubs Woods played were the same clubs that average golfers could buy.

Over the past decade or so, LA Golf has faced various challenges. “We’ve partnered with the most active golfer of any social media player and I’m very grateful for that,” said Dickens. “Tiger gave Nike some magical moments, like that ball sitting on the edge of the hole before falling in.” On Sunday at the 2005 Masters, on the par-3 16th hole, Woods’ second shot, the Nike swoosh on his golf ball was there for all to see until it was gone. Woods won his fourth Masters that year. “But I don’t think that helped Nike’s return on investment,” said Dickens.

By 2016, Nike was out of the golf manufacturing business. That same year, DeChambeau turned pro. For several years, he has been helping LA Golf enter the golf business at the highest level. For ubiquity, LA Golf wasn’t like TaylorMade or Titleist, but DeChambeau helped get the LA Golf name known by countless golfers, no question about that. You should always start with the base, with your constituents. Every student of politics knows that, and every sales manager knows it, too.

Dickens believes the company has a new product line (and notes that Sergio Garcia is playing LA Golf clubs this year). But what LA Golf will have to do now is move forward without its Tiger Woods, without the world’s most influential golfer. You know it won’t be easy.

In the meantime, DeChambeau’s 4.3 million Instagram followers, among others, will be curious about Bryson’s next move, what with spring just a month away and Bryson DeChambeau basking in the title, winking or not, as Golf’s Most Interesting Man.

Yo, Bryson: What gives, bro?

***

II. BRYSON’S BREAKTIME

Your fulfillment agent sent a text Tuesday morning at 9:15 to DeChambeau’s longtime agent, Mr. Brett Falkoff, senior vice president of GSE Worldwide, noted that Reed Dickens has explained the nature of the news between LA Golf and the golfer. Would Bryson like to discuss their years together and his mission future? (Not that he needs this GOLF.com megaphone, what with the millions following him on Instagram, iX, YouTube, TikTok.) Seventy minutes later, a response from Falkoff came:

“Bryson is no longer an ambassador for LA Golf, he is a customer and he still has pins in his bag.”

If we hear more, Part II of this report will be expanded and updated.

Until then, the first round of the 2026 Masters (this and the last Tuesday in February) is 45 days away. Bryson is in the court and will have 14 clubs in his hand. DeChambeau at Augusta will be interesting because DeChambeau pretty much anywhere is interesting. What clubs, and what shafts will he use? Always a question with Bryson, although this is a good time to share what Reed Dickens observed: “Bryson can win with a recruiting set.”

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com