As the world's best player, when Scottie Scheffler speaks, it carries some weight. Which is why many golf fans were interested to see what he said about the controversial two-shot penalty handed out to Bryson DeChambeau after round two of The Open Championship.
Scheffler, who played with DeChambeau in that fateful second round, was asked about it the following day, but decided against giving his opinion. "I don't really have a ton to say on it," he told the media on Saturday, before changing his quote. "Actually, I do have a ton to say. I haven't decided exactly what I want to say publicly yet." He also added that he wanted to focus on the tournament at hand, without worrying about making comments that might take on a life of their own.
After a frustrating tournament filled with missed putts and missed opportunities through the first three rounds, Scheffler got himself back in contention on Sunday. Including getting a controversial break himself with very beneficial TIO relief after pulling his second shot on the par-5 17th left of the grandstand. But he came up just short with a disappointing 18th hole, making bogey and falling to seven under.
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That set the stage for his post-round media availability, where, naturally, he was asked again about the DeChambeau ruling. And after all that anticipation over which side Scheffler would take, he took a little bit of both.
"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," Scheffler said. "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."
That's a clear-cut defense of DeChambeau's integrity and commitment to following the rules. But immediately after, did say that the rules need to be more strictly enforced and that he might have been "careless" with his steps.
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"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," Scheffler explained.
"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."
That's another point that several other players, including Russell Henley, brought up. Every shot DeChambeau takes is recorded by cameras, whereas players who aren't subject to that level of scrutiny might be able to get away with a bit of say, adjustment, to the conditions around them.
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"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?" Scheffler added. "I think sometimes it's just a difficult position in the game of golf."
Still, after defending DeChambeau, the world number one did say that there should be more enforcement of the "traditions" of golf and stricter policing moving forward.
"When I was growing up, 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," Scheffler said. "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.
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"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."
So he defended DeChambeau and his character, saying he believes there was no intentional violation of the rules. But he also seemed to say that the penalty was correct, and that there should be stricter enforcement of similar situations moving forward.
That's where many golf fans find themselves after the tournament, defending DeChambeau's intentions, believing that improved lies happen frequently without penalty, while also thinking that the rules should be more strictly enforced. Though it's one thing for outsiders to say, and entirely different coming from the best in the world.
