U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP 2026

June 16, 2026

Scottie Scheffler

Shinnecock Hills Golf Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Please join us in welcoming World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler. Scottie, start with a few initial thoughts on Shinnecock.

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, I got to play here a couple weeks ago. Played nine holes the last few days. The golf course is in good shape. It looks like it's shaping up to be a pretty windy week. I think the golf course will play pretty nice.

The fairways are quite generous in some spots, but I think when you get wind and the firmness, they play significantly more narrow than they look. Looks like it should be a good test this week.

THE MODERATOR: We've already seen two different winds yesterday versus today. Can you talk about how you've played the golf course so far this week?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, like you said, the wind has changed a little bit. Some of the rumors I heard about this place is it could even switch a decent amount throughout the day, as well.

I think this week we're looking mostly at a westerly wind. There's some south wind as well one day, but I think it's mostly out of the west. Overall, it looks like it could dry out the golf course pretty quickly. Everything so far looks pretty nice to me.

Q. Scottie, with the first attempt to win the career grand slam this week, I'm wondering if you could think about it from a casual sports fan perspective. What do you think having a golfer like yourself have this chance or Rory completing it last year, what does that do for golf to maybe not a hard-core golf fan?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: That's a good question. I think it would definitely bring more eyeballs to the sport, which is always a good thing. I think golf is a great game. I think it's something that everybody should have a chance to be introduced to. I think you learn a lot about yourself. I think you learn a lot of life lessons through the game of golf.

Some of my best friends in the whole world I know just from playing golf and playing golf with them and growing up with those types of guys. This game obviously means a lot to me as a player, and it's been a huge part of my life for a long time. It's something that I would love for more people to get introduced to.

Q. You grew up playing windy courses in Texas and whatnot. I'm curious, how do you learn how to -- how did you develop the skill to play in wind? Is it just repetition or tricks you've learned over time? How does that work?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Playing in it more often, I think a lot of it is mostly just experience, especially in different types of winds. Like the wind at Pebble Beach is different than the wind here, and it's different than the wind at home. It's 100 degrees at home right now. Sorry, mid-90s. A little exaggeration there. When it's hot, the ball doesn't get as affected by the wind.

Here the wind is a bit heavier. I wouldn't say it's as heavy as a Pebble Beach, but it is a pretty heavy wind. I think a lot of that you just learn from experience and playing in all different kinds of conditions.

Q. Is it more about restraint and patience on this kind of golf course? Or I know you kind of try to maintain the same mentality every time you go out there, but anything different here on this very challenging test?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: A lot of it's execution, and then there's definitely an element of patience to it because you can hit some pretty decent shots and find yourself in some spots that are quite brutal, especially when you get some high winds.

So, yeah, a lot of it just comes down to execution, but I think patience is a large part of it, as well.

Q. You talking so much about the wind and the weather, how much of a weather nerd are you? Are you focused on the forecast or just looking at the next day, the 24 hours ahead of you?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I think most golfers are kind of weather nerds. I always joke, if you ever want to know what the weather is, ask a golfer just because we're always looking at it. Especially I think where we live, Jordan and I, I feel like, are constantly checking the weather.

When you play an outdoor sport, you just like to know what's coming. I think it's important to be able to prepare for those types of scenarios.

It's a lot of what practice rounds are for is to prepare to play in the tournament. So when you're out there, you're looking at where the wind's going to be coming from and how you're going to plan to play the golf course.

Q. How much of it is physical and how much is mental in terms of preparing for the wind in a situation like this?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I'd probably lean more towards mental just because you're using a lot of your imagination, especially when you don't get the exact wind on the practice round days. So you just have to imagine what that ball's going to do.

I think that physically I'm not going to learn any new shots on Monday through Wednesday this week that I'm going to try and use you over the weekend. I think a lot of the physical's always there. I think more of it is just the preparation.

Q. What significance, if any, do you see in the fact that the first two major championships this year have been won by players from the UK?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: What significance?

Q. It's never happened before.

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: It's never happened before?

Q. Not the first two, no.

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: That's a bit surprising with the amount of talent that's come out of the UK. I think golf is becoming increasingly a global game. I look at these young guys come out of college these days here in the States, and they're from all over the globe, and they have a ton of talent, and they're ready to compete out here from a very young age.

I think the sport has continued to evolve and continuing to develop. Those younger guys, they have all the tools they could possibly need in order to become professional golfers, and I think they're doing a good job of using those tools to continue to improve.

Yeah, I think there's just a lot of talent in the game of golf right now.

Q. Is there anything about this course that encourages people from the UK to think they might have a better chance here than at other U.S. Open courses?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I mean, it's a tough question for me to answer. I don't have a ton of experience playing golf in the UK outside of The Open and the Scottish Open.

It also depends on where you grew up. If you grew up on a links course out towards the coast, yeah, I think there would be some value there. Just based on, like I said, this type of wind. You know, the temperatures are a little bit cooler here than they are, and that wind is coming off the water, which makes it a bit heavier. That might have something to do with it.

But if you grew up inland in the UK, which I almost have no experience playing golf, but just from what I've seen, I'm not sure how much it would help with this type of golf course.

I think the great thing about this course specifically from what I've noticed, is if you're executing and you're hitting the ball in the right spots, you can play this golf course. I think the minute you start hitting the ball offline, you are like, man, how do I even finish this hole, I think is sometimes what it feels like.

Q. Considering you said on many, many occasions that your whole goal is to be as prepared as possible when you get to the first tee, how do you guard against just knowing this opportunity at The Open is different than the previous ones, just with what's at stake and all?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: It's kind of a funny thing. It's like, yeah, if I win this tournament, that would be amazing, but I think then I show up the next week, and it's like, okay, now Scottie's won the grand slam, he's won all these golf tournaments. Now where do we go from here?

So no matter what, I think as a player and as a professional athlete, you're never going to live up to the expectations of people. I think sometimes that's a little bit of the fallacy in our sport is like, if I win the U.S. Open, then I'm going to be satisfied. I've won all the tournaments, and my career is essentially over, and I've accomplished everything I could want to accomplish. But I think the goal posts are always just moved further and further.

If you took my career from where I was as a college player, I would have extremely overachieved being in this position. I wasn't the best college player. I had a decent college career, but by no means was I a can't-miss type of prospect.

The guys that turned pro at the time were better than me. There were guys, you look at Collin Morikawa and Hovland and Matt Wolff, those guys were winning tournaments immediately when they turned pro, and I had a little bit of a slower burn in terms of the development of my career.

For me, would it be a dream to win the U.S. Open? Of course. But at the end of the day, like I -- the grand slam has never been a motivating factor for me. I always just wanted to be the best version of myself, and that got me this far.

So when it comes to this golf tournament, like I said, I'm going to step on the first tee and remind myself I've done everything I possibly could in order to play well, and now it's just a matter of going out there and trying to execute and kind of going back to enjoying the competition versus feeling like you have to win for some reason.

Q. At what point did you become a can't-miss prospect?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Maybe 2022, I started winning some golf tournaments finally (laughter).

Q. If I'd told you at the beginning of your career that you'd win three of the four majors, but the U.S. Open would be the one you'd still need to get, how would you react to that?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I always felt like The Open would be one of the hardest ones for me to win because, like I said earlier, I didn't have a lot of experience playing over there in the UK.

Growing up, I played a lot of golf here in the States. I didn't really play much internationally at all. For me, not having the experience on links golf, I would have said that would probably be the most difficult for me to win.

I always had self-belief. I always believed that I could win golf tournaments out here. I always had that belief in myself that I could accomplish some nice things in the game of golf.

Yeah, does that answer the question?

Q. Kind of. Any of the close calls -- you had a bunch of top-7 finishes at this tournament. Any of them that you've left here going, damn, I should have won that one?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I think every time you don't win a tournament, I think you always have those feelings. Golf is such a funny game. I think in terms of like -- a good example this week, if I finish second this week, it's almost like, hey, you failed in your first chance to win the career grand slam. It's kind of, like, is finishing second a failure?

Like, yeah, it can feel that way, but I think sometimes when you look at more of kind of a wider view of the sport and where your game's at, second is not always that bad, but man, does it frickin' hurt at the same time.

So you can feel like a failure in this sport oftentimes just because you're not winning, and I think that's just part of it. That's why I said I try not to focus too much on my successes or my failures, one, because you get beat up an awful lot in this game. It's a tough sport.

But, two, if I was feeling so good about all my successes, I probably wouldn't be too much fun to be around either.

Q. The fairways are being presented much wider this year than in 2018. I know you didn't play the 2018 U.S. Open, but what is your perspective on that setup decision? And how much do you think driving accuracy will be at a premium this week relative to other major venues that you've seen?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I feel like the USGA is doing a good job of trying to strike a balance between having things be the most difficult they possibly can be while also still rewarding the shots hit that are really good.

I think with the way the game of golf is going, guys are getting so good, it's getting increasingly harder and harder in order to have winning scores be over par, or whatever somebody would want them to be. It's getting increasingly harder I think for that to happen.

When you look at this golf course specifically, a good shot off the tee more often than not is going to end up in the fairway. I think sometimes it can turn into a little bit of a bomb-and-gouge type of test when nobody can hit the fairway. I think you can have fairways that are too small and if they get really firm, all of a sudden nobody can hit the fairway. Then it's like, all right, well, I'm probably not going to hit this fairway. I better just get it up there somewhere so I can get up on the green.

I think the USGA and what's really good about I think some of these major championship setups is a little bit of the variety that we see from year to year on these courses. This course, having wider fairways, but then the greens play really, really small. So I think you kind of have an interesting paradox between those two, wide fairways and greens that play quite small.

Q. With the widening, some people will say, well, driving accuracy won't be as important, what would your argument be to that?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I would say driving accuracy is extremely important. There might be a couple holes, but you put a 20-mile-an-hour wind out there, these fairways with how firm they are, are not going to play super wide.

I think when you look at your poor tee shots hitting it into in the rough in this fescue, it's going to be virtually impossible to get the ball on the green. I think that's really good.

I think when you hit a drive into the fairway, you should have a chance to hit a really good shot and get it on the green. When you miss the fairway, for the most part, it should be a challenge to get your ball onto the green. I think with the high grass you have around those fairways, it provides that challenge.

I think when you get further out into the crowd, since there's no real thing to block it, then you can kind of get a little bit lucky, but if you're hitting the ball barely offline here, you're going to have some trouble getting the ball out onto the greens.

Q. Simple question, but how do you evaluate your year so far? We're about two-thirds of the way through, if you count the TOUR Championship as the end. What do you think of 2026 at this point?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I'd say I feel like I've been close most of the year. I feel like I just haven't been as sharp as I needed to be. I think the margins in this game are so small. For me to be winning a lot of tournaments, you've got to just be really, really sharp.

I feel like maybe I've just been a touch dull, because I think statistically I think I'm maybe leading the FedExCup, I think I'm leading the strokes gained statistics, so by no means is it a bad year. Is it up to the play I've had the previous couple of years? Probably not, but it's not far off.

I would say a lot of it is just the sharpness, and that can come from a variety of things. But sometimes, like, I'm either not making the momentum putt, or I make a sloppy bogey somewhere, or I hit an iron shot a touch thin instead of really solid, and all of a sudden it ends up in the bunker, and I make bogey instead of hitting a really good shot and making birdie.

The margins are just so small I think in this game. I feel like this year I've been what I would describe as close.

Q. I'm curious if you get into the World Cup at all, even if it's just the U.S. matches? Would you like to go?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I'm not a big soccer guy most of the year. I pretty much save all my sports for football. I actually really enjoyed watching the NBA Finals the last few weeks, as well.

I think, if you're a fan of sport, which I am, you pretty much have to get into the World Cup. I've been able to watch a bit. Not as much as I'd hoped to, but I'm definitely paying attention.

Q. You mentioned not being able to grow up on links courses. What do you find rewarding playing venues like this, especially when it comes to testing your creativity and imagination?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: What do you mean rewarding?

Q. In the sense of it seems like links asks certain things about your game that maybe a parkland course doesn't.

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, I wouldn't really describe this -- are you saying this course is a links course?

Q. Yeah.

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: It may look like a links course. I don't think it really plays like one. Links golf is really interesting in a sense of once you get the ball onto the green, most of the greens are pretty flat and they're fairly slow compared to these greens, just because you have so many elements. Those golf courses are naturally always firmer as well.

Links golf is one of those things where once you get the ball on the green, it's actually fairly easy. There's not a ton of slope on the greens. These, you can be in the middle of the green and be like, wow, I don't know how I'm going to two-putt from here. I think it may look like links golf but doesn't necessarily play like it.

In all of these shots here, there's a lot of false fronts on the greens, and it's not really easy to run it up. On this golf course, the challenge is you still have to play a lot of shots into the air and then control your spin in the wind as well. That's really the challenge here.

I think links a lot of times you can hit just really, really low shots and kind of run it around everywhere. Around this golf course, I'm not really sure that necessarily works. It may on a couple holes, but for most of the holes you've still got to be hitting the ball up in the air in order to hold the greens.

Q. Any thoughts on 2018 here? I'm assuming you watched it on TV. If you didn't, you can just leave.

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I've watched some of it. I've heard the golf course is pretty similar to 2018, so I watched a little bit of the highlights to get a gauge of how it will play once the tournament starts just because I think they're being a little bit more careful this year, just with some of the episodes I think they've had at previous tournaments here.

Playing in my last practice round a couple of weeks ago, I got some info on the course and basically how quickly they can get it to dry out just with the nature of the conditions out here. So I think they're being a little cautious to start the week just in terms of the softness.

No, I don't remember a ton of 2018.

Q. One last thing. You've got an early start on Thursday. Do you have a preference? Early/late, late/early?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: No, not really.