Golf's top player explains 'stuff I wouldn't normally do' by being at Scottish Open
World No 1 opens up on the difference between US-style golf and the game in Scotland
It was golf gold. Scottie Scheffler, the world No 1, had been asked whether he thought The Open or the US Open offered his best chance to move a step closer to a career grand slam and off he went in the Genesis Scottish Open media centre.
“I don't think so. I like both styles of golf,” said the American, who has already won The Masters, twice, and the PGA Championship. “I love getting beat up at the US Open. That's a fun battle between us and the golf course. And coming over here you get to do a lot of stuff I wouldn't normally do.
“Around the greens here, for example. When we're in the States, if we're practising short game around the green, I probably will use two clubs. I'll use a 60-degree and a 56. Here, I'm bringing like five or six clubs, sometimes all the way down to an 8-iron.
“To me, it's a much more traditional style of golf where you can tell that the game is invented over here. Because, if you come out with an older gentleman who is maybe a ten handicap and can't hit the ball very high, he can still play these golf courses because you can run the ball on the ground.
“No matter where you are, there's always a shot to be played. In the States we have to deal with a lot of grain and stuff like that around the greens and some heavier rough. The US Open and The Open Championship are two totally different types of challenges.
“When you miss a green at the US Open, you're basically going to hit a similar type of shot each time where you're just opening the face with a 60 and trying to play like a bunker shot to get the ball close to the hole, extremely difficult for anybody. It's something that I would say nobody has really perfected how to do it.
“You get over here and I miss a green, and I'm going to go over there, assess the lie. Sometimes I may get a really clean lie and sometimes I may get a thick lie, and with a thick lie I'll have to do a more traditional open face with a 60, play like a bunker shot.
“With a clean lie, I may be using an 8-iron to pitch up the slope or maybe a 50-degree depending how much pitch there is in the slope. Over here, there's just more options, and it's just a little bit of a different test than some of the tests we see at home.”
Scheffler, who finished joint-third two years ago before sitting out last year’s event due to the Olympics being on the schedule and, of course, he won the gold medal in Paris, is here this week with wife Meredith and their son, Bennett.
“This is a fun week for us,” said the 29-year-old, who has won a remarkable 16 times on the PGA Tour in just over three years. “We get to stay very close to the course. So it's nice for them to be able to walk out and hang out with me for a couple holes. That's something we very rarely get to do.
“Yesterday there were no fans, so it was nice to relax and have Meredith come and hang for a couple holes. At tournament weeks, you don't get a bunch of time at home, so it's nice for them to come out and hang out a little bit.”
Scheffler has defending champion Bob MacIntyre for company in the opening two rounds in East Lothian, the pair having struck a friendship from the 2017 Waller Cup in Los Angeles.
“Bob got a tough break two years ago with Rory birdieing the last two holes in pretty challenging conditions to beat him by one and for him to bounce back and win last year was nice for me to see, and I was happy for him,” said Scheffler. “He's a guy that works really hard, and he's one of the great guys out here. So it was nice to see him get it done at his home tournament.”
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