THE MODERATOR: Good morning, everyone. Scottie Scheffler joins us now at the 2025 Ryder Cup. Scottie, welcome to your third Ryder Cup. We're going to go ahead and jump right into questions.
Q. Scottie, I know you were asked a couple weeks ago, but how much motivation was what happened two years ago in Rome, not just the motivation for here but what it's been throughout the last two years?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I don't know if motivation is really the right word. I think you can learn from your wins and your losses, and I've had some nice wins out here, and I've had some tough losses as well.
I think you can always learn from those experiences, and I think that would be the best way that I could describe it, is how much I learned from the experience in Rome, how much I learned from the experience at Whistling Straits, and I feel like I have a large bank of knowledge over the course of my career that I can use to my advantage, especially when things get tough.
I don't think it can be understated how difficult of a week Rome was for us. I think we could have done better for sure. That wasn't how I expected the week to go. I think we learned from it, and we're as prepared as ever this time.
Q. You don't see Bryson around that often, obviously, other than the majors. I'm curious what your take is on him as a teammate and how explosive he can be for your team this week?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, I mean, I think Bryson is a tremendous competitor. He's a great partner as well. I partnered with him in 2021 at Whistling Straits and he was a tremendous guy to be out to be golf course with. He's a great guy and a good friend and he's been great in our team room.
Like I said, he brings a lot of energy, the people love him, and I think he loves the opportunity to be able to represent his country. He's a multiple-time U.S. Open winner, and that means a lot to him. Being an American I think means a lot to him as well.
I'm excited to kind of unleash him this week.
Q. Nobody knows Sam Burns as well as you do; what makes him such a good putter? Is it technique? Is it belief?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Well, he's got really sound technique. His fundamentals are really good. He works on them daily. But Sam, I think, does a great job of being free over a putt as anybody I've ever seen. I've talked to him about the way he reads greens and he does his AimPoint stuff but it's almost not even -- he doesn't do AimPoint like everybody else does AimPoint.
He kind of gets an idea and he does what he thinks he should, and he does it time and time and time again. His consistency with the putter is pretty amazing because you'll get guys that have really goof putting years and they'll be up on top of the list, but Sam year in and year out is right up on top.
Q. Should the expectations of you be any different than any other player on the team? And whatever your answer is, if you could elaborate as much as you can I would really appreciate it.
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Should the expectations of me be different than any other player? I mean, I don't really think about that kind of stuff. If that's something you want to write about, then more power to you.
I don't think I have any -- I don't think about expectations. I don't bother with that kind of stuff because it's unimportant to me.
What I focus on when I show up to tournaments is my preparation, and I have prepared for this tournament, I'm ready to go out and compete, and when I step up there on Friday I can tell myself on the tee on that I did ever last little thing that I could in order to play well when it's time to go do what I love to do, and that's compete and have fun. I'm excited to be able to play in front of a home crowd.
I truly don't think about expectations or anything like that. That's wasted space in my brain.
Q. You're going to have a ton of home support this week, including from the President of the United States. He's going to be making a visit. How does it feel for you and the guys to have him here?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, I think our team as a whole, we're very proud to be Americans. I think the flag means a lot to us. Being here in New York I think is very special as well.
And to have the President here, it's been a tough few weeks for our country with some of the stuff that's been going on, and to have our president here and for us to represent the United States of America, albeit being in a golf tournament, is extremely important for us and we're excited to be on home soil with the home crowd and we're ready to get this tournament started.
Q. Could you talk about, when Tiger was on these teams, it was always hard for the captain to pair somebody with him because he was the World No. 1 and everybody looked up to him. I'm suggesting in some ways that's where you fall this year in this team. Have you thought about the difficulty of pairing somebody with you and how you might want to react because you are the World No. 1 and because you are the guy that people are going to look up to?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, I think on our team, I think we have 12 guys that are all equal. I don't think one player is more important than another. I think that is something that is through our team room.
I'd like to think that I'm not difficult to pair with people. I'd like to think of myself as someone that's a nice guy and easy to get along with. I've had different partners over the years and have had some success. I would definitely not put myself in that category.
I think some of the difficulty you had with playing with Tiger -- I mean, I don't even know what it could be. It could just be the aura that was Tiger Woods. There was some times there when he was doing nothing but winning golf tournaments and just beating the absolute crap out of people time and time again.
I couldn't tell you what was difficult for those partners because I wasn't there. For me, I'd like to think I'm an easy guy to pair with.
Q. So you don't think there's an aura of being Scottie Scheffler?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Not really. (Laughing). I don't have much to elaborate on that.
Q. Scottie, you raised quite a few eyebrows with your comments at The Open Championship in terms of what golf overall means to you as an individual and how quickly you move on from the triumphs. I wondered if that dynamic is altered in any way when you're playing for your country in a Ryder Cup?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: What I was trying to say at The Open Championship is that immediately after a tournament ends there's this euphoric feeling of actually winning the golf tournament, but it just doesn't really last that long. I have a deep sense of satisfaction and pride in what I've been able to accomplish in this game. This game means a lot to me.
I never even really liked the saying, it's just a game, because for the amount of work it takes for me to come out here and play golf, this is a lot more than just a game to me.
This is something that's very important to me. This is essentially my life's work right now. This is what I spend -- if I'm not with my family, I'm thinking about golf, I'm thinking about how to get better.
I wish that I could turn my brain off to something else, and sometimes when you get home I have to find new hobbies or new things to become obsessed with because if not I'm just going to be thinking about golf literally all the time.
So when it comes to playing for team and playing for country, I don't really have to change much because I think my passion for the game of golf runs so deep, my passion for my country runs so deep that when it comes to these team events, it's just another way to continue to be motivated to work hard, to want to get the most out of myself, and to be a good friend and be a good teammate to the guys on this team because the Ryder Cup, it's a really special event and it's something that we're very excited for.
Like I said, we take a lot of pride in being Americans, and we're excited to play for our country this week and play in front of a home crowd.
Q. Obviously this is the first time that the American players are receiving the stipend to go with the charitable giving. What's your stance on that particular issue?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: On that particular issue?
Q. Well, in terms of are you keeping the stipend? Is it going to charity? What are you doing there?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I don't know if we've met before, but my wife and I, we like to do a lot of stuff in our local community and I've never been one to announce what we do. I don't like to give charitable dollars for some kind of recognition.
We have something planned for the money that we'll be receiving. I think it's a really cool thing that the PGA of America has empowered us to do. I have a deep passion for the city of Dallas, I have a deep passion for the organizations that we support at home, and I'm excited to be able to take this money and be able to do some good in our local community.
Q. Just before Rome, you started working with Phil Kenyon. How would you characterize how comfortable you are with the work that you two are doing now versus then?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: How would I characterize it? I feel like when we were in Rome -- yeah, when we were in Rome I'd only been working with Phil for a few weeks. I had called him after the TOUR Championship, and we had started working on some stuff.
It was really, I think, fresh then, where now we have a body of work of basically two years of trial and error and have some results to look back on and kind of see the progress that we've made.
I think I'm just in a really comfortable position with where my game is at. Phil has been tremendous for me, keeping things simple, keeping my mind clear, and I just have so much confidence in what we're working on.
Whereas I think two years ago in Rome, the relationship was just so fresh, you're almost kind of testing things out, if that makes sense. Just because Phil was really the first coach that I'd ever seen outside of Randy.
Q. When the president went to the Yankees recently, he actually went into the clubhouse and addressed the players. I just wondered if you have or had any plans to meet him before or --
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I personally don't have any plans. The president is kind of funny. He loves the game of golf, he loves supporting golfers, and I get a call or a text from him sometimes after wins. He just loves the game of golf, and he's one of those guys when you're around him, he does such a good job of, like, feeding confidence into everybody around him.
That was one of the things I noticed a lot with the little bit of time I spent with him, is he treats everybody the same and treats people with the utmost respect.
Whether you're the person serving us lunch or the caddie on the golf course or the guy who's the president of the club that we're at, he treats everybody like they're the greatest person in the world.
I don't think he has any plans to address us as a team, but I'm sure if things go well, we'll hear from him this week.
Q. Are you able to give us any insight into what he says when he calls you?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Great job.
Q. I'm sure you're relatively satisfied with your career since Rome, but what do you remember particularly about that game against Viktor and Ludvig, and do you take a layer of scar tissue from that? Is there a score to be settled? What would be your memories of that day in particular?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I think satisfied is also a very dangerous word to use when you're talking about your career and the game of golf. I would say even after tournaments that I win, I think satisfaction is something that doesn't really creep into my mind.
I'm a perfectionist at heart, and I think that's what's so great about the game of golf. That's what I love about it; there's literally always something you can improve on, and that's what I focus on day in day out. There is always little things that I'm working on, trying to improve.
In terms of the match with Viktor and Ludvig, do I carry anything from it? No. I lost a point. It was a tough day. Came back the next day, played my best, ended up having a match with Rahm and we ended up losing the Cup.
There's always things you can learn from those experiences, and I don't use them -- I think motivation is a weird word to use. I think satisfaction is definitely a dangerous word to use in terms of golf.
My motivation has always been internal, and like I said, I love being able to practice and play, and you're always trying to work on something in the game of golf, and it's like a puzzle that can never be solved.
I think that's what excites me. I think that's what excites me about coming into these weeks, and I'm just excited for the week to get started.
Q. Is there a part of you that would like to draw them again?
SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I'm really excited to play whoever I'm going to be going up against. It's going to be a fun week. We're playing in front of a home crowd. There's nothing better than this type of competition when you're out there with your partner, you're playing for your country, you're playing for your team.
These are the weeks when you look back on your career, these are the weeks that I remember the most. I have some of my best memories of my whole life playing these tournaments. Like I said, I'm just excited for Friday to get started.
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