Padraig Harrington savages Bryson DeChambeau for ‘biggest mistake ever’ at 2025 Masters

The biggest mistake ever in tournament golf?

To three-time major winner Padraig Harrington, it was Bryson DeChambeau’s decision to lay up off the tee at the third hole in the final round of the 2025 Masters.

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Speaking to Golfweek, Harrington argued everything changed at Flowering Peach, the 350-yard par 4, at Augusta National. DeChambeau, who began the day two strokes back, had surged into the lead thanks to a double bogey by 54-hole leader Rory McIlroy and a textbook two-putt birdie at the par-5 second.

“It’s at least in the conversation,” Harrington said. “Bryson had it won and then he hit an iron off the tee. He was trying to be the cleverest golfer in the field after his previous comments that it was a drivable hole, and he could have hit driver on the edge of the green or on the green, and Rory would have been a broken man standing at that third hole. Bryson hits an iron, he leaves himself one of the toughest second shots in golf. If he hits driver, he asserts his authority.”

Instead, McIlroy opted for driver and made birdie and DeChambeau a three-putt bogey and the lead flipped again. McIlroy agrees with Harrington, calling it the most important moment of the final round.

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The third hole is sneaky hard, and it has been a nemesis to DeChambeau over the years, including in 2020 when he couldn’t find his tee shot left in the second round and carded a triple bogey. DeChambeau, the longest driver in golf, took his best club out of the bag. To Harrington, he outsmarted himself and it ended up costing him dearly.

“That was one of the most startling changes of a golfer’s personality and game plan by DeChambeau,” Harrington said. “This is a guy who whacks driver down the tightest of golf holes because that’s where his advantage is and on a hole that the stats guys have categorically shown even for a medium hitter, it’s a driver. Nobody should be hitting an iron off that tee.”

DeChambeau fell out of contention with more miscues, including another two-shot swing at the fourth where he made bogey, and ballooned to a 3-over 75 and finished T-5, four strokes out of a playoff that gave McIlroy, the winner, the career Grand Slam. But to hear Harrington tell it, DeChambeau cost himself the Green Jacket.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Padraig Harrington on Bryson DeChambeau’s biggest Masters mistake