Ever since Bryson DeChambeau’s two-stroke penalty on Friday, the golf world can’t stop talking about it.
Now world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler is chiming in.
Broadcasters, reporters, fans and fellow players have all given their two cents on DeChambeau’s Friday unraveling at The Open that started with the penalty for improving his lie and ended with him hitting balls in the dark and threatening to withdraw, holding up Round 3 tee times.
But while Rory McIlroy called DeChambeau “performative” on Saturday and said the 32-year-old’s actions were “for attention,” world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler held back.
“I do have a ton to say. I haven’t decided exactly what I want to say publicly yet,” Scheffler said after the third round.
Scheffler was asked again if he felt comfortable talking about the situation after his T-4 finish at Royal Birkdale on Sunday. Initially, he said, “No.”
And then, in a no-turned-yes, Scheffler spoke at length on the subject.
“I’ve been really focused on the tournament,” the 30-year-old started. “I think that opens up a greater discussion that — all I can really say is I think maybe we need to be a little bit more strict in the way that we are policing guys, but it’s a little bit of a balance, because you’ve got certain guys like a Bryson who every shot he hits is going to be shown on TV. When you have camera angles that are far away, things can look different than they do when you’re right there.
“We’ve done a good job of — I don’t know, I hate saying stuff out here because I don’t want anything to get taken out of context. All I’ll say is Bryson, I’ve known him for a long time, and he’s a lot of things, but he’s definitely not a cheater. I’ve never seen him cheat once, whether we were having a putting contest on the putting green or chipping contest, or anytime we played amateur golf, I never saw anything suspicious.
“When you’re watching him there from that camera angle, maybe he was a touch careless around his ball, but I don’t think he did anything intentionally.
“We’ve seen penalties happen with — like you remember Jon Rahm a couple years ago at the Memorial when his ball moved in the rough, and it’s like to the naked eye, can you really tell that?
“I think sometimes it’s just a difficult position in the game of golf. When I was growing up, if this was the line between things that were — like if this was the line, here are the rules and this was the right side of it and this is when you’re doing things against the rule, you always tried to stray really far that way. I feel like, at times, sometimes you see players maybe push it a little bit further than they should.
“I think we need to kind of get back to the traditions of the game and maybe we do need to police things a little bit more stricter in the game.
“But like I said, it’s a tough line to kind of cross. So that’s why it’s hard for me to say anything like this. Bryson is a guy that I’ve known for a really long time. Like I said, he’s not a cheater.”
DeChambeau finished the tournament with rounds of 69 and 72, finishing T-14 at 4 under overall.
