U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP 2025

June 14, 2025

Scottie Scheffler

Oakmont Country Club

Flash Interview

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: If the guys that are on 9 now go out and shoot 3-, 4-under on the back nine, it's going to be really tough for me to catch them, but I'm only -- you know, I think right now I'm seven shots back, which around this place, I mean anything can happen. I mean, do I feel like I'm out of the tournament? No. Do I wish I played a little bit better today? Yeah. Of course.

Q. What would be a goal tomorrow? Do you have a score in mind?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Play better. Hit some fairways, hit some greens, hole a few putts.

Q. What do you feel like you didn't do well enough today?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I mean, I just -- I felt like I had a hard time getting momentum. I made a few silly mistakes out there, a couple three-putts, which is just a killer.

Overall I felt like I was battling hard. You're going to make little mistakes out here. There's so much pitch on the greens. It's really challenging, and I did a pretty good job, I think, today of staying patient, still getting in and posting a score.

I'm not sure what place I'm in now, but I think the leaders are at 3-under and I'm at 4-over. So am I in the position I had hoped to be after three days? Obviously not. But for the way I've swung it and played the last few days, I feel like I could be a lot worse.

So once again, a good job of battling, but hopefully tomorrow will be a little bit more free than a battle.

Q. Yesterday there was some footage of you on the range, looked like were you frustrated, I guess. Is this just the ebbs and flows of tournament golf, trying to figure out what's going on? From week to week, sometimes you don't have what you want?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, I would say in terms of a practice session after the round, that was pretty regular. We're just trying to figure stuff out out there.

To be honest with you, yesterday we left the range, I felt like I didn't figure anything out. Just one of those days where just the swing wasn't there.

Randy had some thoughts for me that definitely helped today, but I'm going to go hit a few more balls and see if we can figure something out. But overall today was -- yesterday for me to shoot 1-over was, I mean, pretty amazing, I felt like, with the spots I was hitting it and the way I was playing. I got up-and-down a lot. I made a lot of key putts, especially on the back nine.

At one point I was maybe even outside the cut line yesterday, and so to battle back, not having my best stuff, to get in there and still have a chance to shoot even par -- without the bogey on 9, I shoot even par. It was a pretty good day.

Today, once again, another battle. It's been three days of battling out there. Usually over the course of 72 holes you have a couple days where you your swing feels pretty good, a couple days where maybe it's off, and weeks where you win it's maybe you have three or four days of good ball striking and holing some putts, and a week like this week I've had three days where I haven't really had my swing, and I've been battling out there and still have a chance, albeit an outside chance, but still a chance.

Q. Can you be aggressive on this course when you're behind tomorrow? Does it allow you to?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I think in spots, for sure. Especially with the softness now. There's certain pins that you can get at where you wouldn't be able to get at if they were firm. There's definitely more opportunities I think with the softer course, but you got to be careful. Being overaggressive and missing on the short side you're going to find yourself in some tough spots pretty quick.

Q. How hard is it to go into it mentally almost rooting for people to drop back to you rather than playing for the lead?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I'm not really going to watch what's going on this afternoon. I'm going to go out and practice. I'll be able to see the leaderboards now and check and see what guys are doing.

I'm not necessarily going to be rooting against anybody, but do I hope they go out and shoot 5-under on the back nine? I wouldn't mind even, you know (laughing).

But it's just one of those deals where I put myself in this position. It's not the position I want to be in, but I've done a good job of hanging in there and staying in the tournament, and I'm going to go out on the range and see if I can hit a few good shots, get some good feels for tomorrow's round and then go hit a couple putts, get some recovery and then get out of here.

Q. Is there any indication in your prep that your swing wasn't going to be as sharp as it has been the last few events?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Not really. I've had a pretty good stretch the last month and I felt well-rested coming into this week. Golf is a funny game, and for me to be sitting where I am this week not having really my best stuff I think is pretty good.

Q. I've got a Sam question for you. I feel you can relate to this, but he's not changed much, if anything, from coaches to equipment to where he lives. How important is consistency in what you guys do, especially at a championship like this?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Well, I think in terms of just your development as a player and a person, I think that consistency with the people around you is really important.

Sam's got a coach that he's had for a long time, and you look at something like yesterday like me getting frustrated on the range with my coach Randy, and Sam's definitely been in that position before, and it's just one of those deals. When you have the trust between people that you're almost like a family; you've worked together for so long. I think that's how his team feels as well.

So when you have the great relationships with people, they're able to pick you up when you need to be picked up, need to be picked up, and then they're there to kind of keep you in line when things are not going the way they should be and if your attitude's a little bit off.

You even look at like Brooks made some comments this week about his coach kind of getting in his grille. When have you that consistency and you have long-term relationships, there's a lot more trust that gets built up between people, and a true friend is somebody that is there for you when you need them but they're also they're not going to just be a yes-man, they're there to help you become the best version of yourself, and especially when you look at a team.

Like Randy's job is to help me become the better golfer, and Randy's got a lot of other roles, but at the end of the day, as a golf coach your job is to help me become a better player, and sometimes that's getting in my grille and then other times it's putting his arm around me and telling me it's okay.

I think when you have those long relationships like that, there's a lot of trust that gets built up and you're able to say some things that you wouldn't really say in the first six months of working with somebody.

Q. Adam Scott said when he won the Masters it was kind of difficult to reset his goals after achieving something like that. Rory's alluded to that as well. You did pretty well after winning your first Masters. Wondering how you dealt with that, and can you understand where those guys are coming from?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: There's definitely an aspect of having an achievement that you've thought about for a long time and then being able to achieve that goal. There's typically -- I mean, winning a major championship in general just takes a lot out of you. I think physically and mentally it's a pretty taxing thing to do.

It's really hard to describe to somebody that hasn't really lived through it just because of -- I mean, when I woke up after the PGA Championship this year, I literally felt like I got hit by a bus. Like I felt terrible. And it's just part of the adrenaline, part of competing for four days on a really difficult golf course, keeping your head in it for 72 holes, which is a long time, and just mentally it's exhausting. Physically it's a grind too.

So if that's how I felt after the PGA, I can only imagine how Rory felt after winning the career Grand Slam, and it's not easy to show up every week out here and play well. This is a very difficult sport. We play very difficult golf courses like this one.

We're all out here just trying to do our best, and it's a hard game, and sometimes it can look easy and sometimes it can feel really difficult, but at the end of the day, we're just showing up trying to do our best and then we go home.

Q. Showing up in front of us every single day, good, bad or indifferent, how is that?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Us as in who, like the fans?

Q. Media.

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Sometimes you get good questions, sometimes not so good. Doug throws out a bad one every now and then (laughing). No, this is part of it, I guess.

Q. You always talk about your time on the golf course and your time off the golf course. You've had the 54-hole lead at majors at least three times --

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: You don't know the exact number?

Q. I think it's three. Do you know?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I think it's three.

Q. What's the conversation like at the house on the Saturday night when you're leading a major, and if it's nothing does that help you if Sam's in that spot tonight?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, I mean, I think in both the Masters that I won -- I remember specifically in 2022 Sam had missed the cut so we were alone. In 2024 actually he missed the cut as well. And then at the PGA we were getting home so late. I mean, you tee off at -- Sam's going to tee off at 3:30, he's going to get off the golf course at 8:00, he's going to come talk to you guys, go do his therapy, and I might be in bed by the time he gets home. I mean, really.

Like, the conversation in the morning, we just hang out, there will be two little kids running around. There's nothing crazy, there's not much to say. Sam's been preparing for moments like this for a long time and he's put himself in position to win the golf tournament and he's going to go out tomorrow and try and execute. But at the end of the day all he's going to do is just go out there and do his best and that's what I'm going to try to do tomorrow as well.