Bryson DeChambeau said his driver 'sucks' and the maker of the club compared it to an 8-year-old throwing a tantrum

• Bryson DeChambeau said his driver "sucks" after the first round at The Open Championship.
• His words appear to have him in a bit of hot water with his sponsor, Cobra, who makes his drivers.
• A rep for Cobra who caddied for DeChambeau recently, compared the outburst to a toddler's tantrum.

Bryson DeChambeau didn't have a dream start at The Open Championship on Thursday.

Through an up-and-down round, DeChambeau struggled to find the fairway off the tee at Royal St. George's, finishing one stroke over par with four birdies to five bogeys on the day.

After his round, DeChambeau didn't hold back, criticizing his Cobra driver for some of his struggles on the course.

"I said it yesterday or a couple days ago. If I can hit it down the middle of the fairway, that's great," DeChambeau said. "But with the driver right now, the driver sucks."

"It's literally the physics and the way that they build heads now," DeChambeau said. "It's not the right design, unfortunately. We've been trying to fix it, Cobra has been working their butt off to fix it, and we just haven't had any results yet."

DeChambeau is the most powerful player on the PGA Tour, blasting booming drives past nearly every player he's up against in any field, but his usual bomb-and-gouge philosophy does not pair well with the demands of Royal St. George's.

To compete at The Open, you've got to drive the ball straight, and right now, DeChambeau is struggling.

The only people more frustrated with DeChambeau than himself right now might be his partners at Cobra, who spend hours upon hours engineering his driver with hopes of helping him reach another level of greatness.

Golfweek's David Dusek reached out to Ben Schomin, Cobra's tour operations manager who works closely with DeChambeau.

Two weeks ago, after DeChambeau's longtime caddie Tim Tucker abruptly left his bag, it was Schomin who carried for DeChambeau at the Rocket Mortgage Classic.

Schomin was understandably frustrated with DeChambeau's choice of words.

"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," Schomin said. "It's just really, really painful when he says something that stupid."

While Cobra makes drivers for everyday golfers, DeChambeau is not your average golfer. With his booming swing and unmatched power, his driver requires a ton of work to fine-tune and create a custom club that will help him win on Tour.

After DeChambeau's criticism, Schomin and Cobra didn't hold back.

"He has never really been happy, ever. Like, it's very rare where he's happy," Schomin said. "Now he's in a place where he's swinging a 5-degree driver with 200 mph of ball speed. Everybody is looking for a magic bullet. Well, the magic bullet becomes harder and harder to find the faster you swing and the lower your loft gets."

Schomin said that despite DeChambeau's criticism, he didn't believe that he was actually mad at the company, comparing his outburst to that of a toddler.

"It's like an 8-year-old that gets mad at you," Schomin said. "They might fly off the handle and say, 'I hate you.' But then you go. 'Whoa, no you don't.'

"We know as adults that they really don't mean that and I know that if I got him cornered right now and said, 'What the hell did you say that for,' he would say that he was mad. He didn't really mean to say it that harshly. He knows how much everyone bends over backwards for him, but it's still not cool."

DeChambeau is one of the best golfers on the planet, right now he has a lot to figure out - both on and off the course.