Bryson DeChambeau got his Open Championship started with an up-and-down opening round, finishing at 1-over to sit seven shots behind early leader Louis Oosthuizen. 

DeChambeau struggled off the tee, hitting just four of 14 fairways and, more often than not, finding himself in high fescue synonymous with links golf.

When asked if winning was a possibility if he hit more fairways, DeChambeau sounded off on his driver.

“If I can hit it down the middle of the fairway, that’s great, but with the driver right now, the driver sucks. It’s not a good face for me, and we’re still trying to figure out how to make it good on the mis-hits. I’m living on the razor’s edge, like I’ve told people for a long time," he said.

DeChambeau is using a Cobra Rapspeed driver that is 46 inches long and carries five degrees of loft.

Cobra tour operations manager Ben Schomin told Golfweek's Dave Dusek that DeChambeau's comments struck a nerve.

“It’s just really, really painful when he says something that stupid," Schomin said, adding that Cobra has been "bending over backwards" for last year's U.S. Open winner. 

“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.”

DeChambeau took to social media later in the day to issue an apology for his comments. 

“I sucked today, not my equipment," DeChambeau wrote in the apology, which was posted on Instagram around 11 p.m. local time. “The comment I made in my post round interview today was very unprofessional. My frustration and emotions over the way I drove the ball boiled over.”

Referring to DeChambeau's "razor's edge" comment, Schomin said DeChambeau's mis-hits are magnified by his high club speed, not the Cobra driver.

“Every ingredient has been added to the difficult salad. Literally, it can’t be any more of a challenge. So it’s this constant work in progress," Schomin said.

DeChambeau rattled off three straight birdies on 12, 13 and 14 but bogeyed two of his final four holes to finish at 71 for the day. The No. 6-ranked golfer in the world heading into the Open, DeChambeau leads the PGA Tour with an average driving distance of 321.9 yards, but is 189th in driving accuracy percentage (53.44 per cent).

His last win came at Bay Hill at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March.