Scheffler spoke to reporters Sunday after his final round at Royal Birkdale, where he took some time to open up on DeChambeau’s rules dilemma in the tournament. On Friday, DeChambeau was given a two-stroke penalty after officials determined he had stomped around in the grass on Royal Birkdale’s 321-yard fifth hole.
“Bryson, I’ve known him for a long time. He’s a lot of things, but he’s definitely not a cheater. I’ve never seen him cheat once, whether we were having a putting contest on the putting green or a chipping contest, or any time we played amateur golf, I never saw anything suspicious,” Scheffler said Sunday. “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 also mentioned that professional tournaments need to improve how players are monitored. The Highland Park product said golfers like DeChambeau have to deal with most of their shots being shown on TV, and the camera angles can impact how things are perceived.
“I think that opens up a greater discussion that, all I can really say is I think maybe we need to be a little 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,” Scheffler said. “When you have camera angles that are far away, things can look different than they do when you’re right there.”
DeChambeau wasn’t impacted too greatly by the Friday penalty, as he stayed in contention for first place throughout the weekend. The former SMU golfer ultimately tied for 14th at 4-under.
Scheffler closed out his thoughts on the matter by saying he felt golfers should also work on staying within their established rules.
“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 rules, you always tried to stray really far that way,” Scheffler said. “I feel like at times, sometimes you see players maybe push it a little bit further than they should. 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 stricter in the game.”