MANY of you possibly think that Bryson DeChambeau is some kind of golfing machine, pieced together in a subterranean laboratory and made up of an elaborate tangle of wires, circuit boards, flashing LEDs, joists and rivets. So, when he says, “I’ve got a brass chest”, you probably wouldn’t be surprised if he lifted up his official Ryder Cup polo shirt to reveal a chest that was, quite literally, constructed out of brass.

Poor old DeChambeau needs to be made of stern stuff, of course. During a lively year, which has been more chaotic than Humza Yusaf trying to negotiate the corridors of Holyrood on his knee scooter, the Californian has rarely been out of the spotlight.

Whether it’s been the long-running feud with US team-mate Brooks Koepka which led to heckling from raucous galleries, a withering public assault on his club manufacturers during The Open or his contentious views on Covid vaccinations, the 28-year-old has provided the golf writers with plenty of delicious material. The problem for those golf writers is that he’s been boycotting the press for over a month. Until now, that is.

Ahead of the 43rd Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits, DeChambeau ended his vow of silence while indicating that Koepka and himself had reached some kind of rapprochement.

“I sat down and had dinner with him last night and it was fine,” he said as he painted an idyllic picture of these warring factions ordering one pudding and two spoons in the light of a flickering candle. “I think there may be something fun coming up here moving forward, but I won't speak too much more on that.” They’re not going to be paired together in the foursomes are they?

As for ending his press snub? Well, it might be just for this week. “This is a team event, I'm focused on helping Team USA to a victory, and that's honestly the reason why I'm here,” DeChambeau said when asked why he had agreed to speak with the media. “I'm not going to make this about me again. This is about a team event. I've got a brass chest. I've taken a lot of heat. But I'm okay with it.”

In recent months, DeChambeau has been singled out for special treatment from some of the livelier elements of the US galleries and there were reports of the former US Open champion confronting one loudmouth during the BMW Championship. Not long after that, the high heid yins at the PGA Tour unveiled a new code of conduct for spectators to guard against players being heckled, harassed and abused. In the flag-waving, patriotic fervour of the Ryder Cup, DeChambeau is hoping he’ll get plenty of backing not barracking this weekend.

“We're all humans at the end of the day,” he said of his torrid relationship with the galleries. “I think there's obviously a level of, I guess you could say, control that any human will ever have, and you can have a lot of armour and you can protect yourself with people around you and all that.

“Sure, there are times when it’s not comfortable, but there are also times when it fuels me. I think this week is going to be an amazing example of it, and it's going to be fun to be able to have the crowd behind us and pump them up and show them what I can hopefully do and what we can do as a team more importantly."

The partisan crowds at a Ryder Cup on American soil never need much excuse to get pumped up and one or two trademark DeChambeau howitzers off the tee will no doubt crank up the general yee-hawing.

“I could utilise my length on this golf course to a potential advantage,” he said of the heavy artillery in his armoury. “I would say hopefully I can get it out on the golf course with a 200 miles per hour ball speed. That would be really nice.

“There are going to be certain holes where it’s a huge advantage on: 10, six, five, one, two. There’s a whole list of holes where it’s going to be a huge advantage if I’m hitting it in the fairway.”

DeChambeau’s Ryder Cup has already suffered a loss. He was beaten by Daniel Berger in a bit of team-room table tennis the other night. “It kind of stinks,” he said with a smile. DeChambeau will be hoping it’s his only set-back this weekend.