The Scottie conundrum: Rivals on Scheffler’s dominance

Xander Schauffele – PGA champion and world number two

“Scottie is doing incredible things. Every week we play, he seems to build a bigger lead, and somehow make the mountain even taller for all of us to climb. That’s all he’s been doing, and hats off to him for being so consistent and playing at such a high level for such a long time.”

Rory McIlroy – 2011 US Open champion and world number three

“The word that I describe it as is ‘relentless’. It seems like every time he shows up, he is the guy to beat, and deservedly so. He is undoubtedly the best player in the world at the minute by a long way. It’s up to us to try to get to his level.”

Bryson DeChambeau – 2020 US Open champion and runner-up in last month’s PGA Championship

“From my perspective, he’s got full control of his golf swing. He’s figured out a lot of his putting. He plays some incredibly strategic golf from what I can tell. He doesn’t go too crazy. He just hits the right shots at the right time. He’s really in control of the environment, not only his environment but the conditions on the golf course. He knows what the golf ball is going to do. He knows how to react accordingly. When things go wrong, he’s able to right the ship pretty quickly. That’s just a recipe for success, and he’s been able to do it longer than anyone has for a long time. Again, he is the gold standard right now, and we’re all looking up to him going, alright, how do we get to that level?”

Viktor Hovland – World number five, 2023 FedEx Cup champion and third in last month’s PGA Championship

“Very impressive. Like, obviously we can play well and compete against him when we’re playing well, but he just seems to bring that game every single week, kind of is taking the level of consistency just to another level. Just super impressive. Like, you can have a nice little run, but then most of the time you kind of fall back to whatever, a more average week. But his average week is just really, really good. It’s just very, very impressive to watch. Definitely makes me work harder and motivates me to get better and try to compete against him.”

Seamus Power – Playing his third US Open, finished tied-12th at LA Country Club last year

“Honestly, it’s remarkable. I don’t even think that it’s getting the coverage that it probably should. It’s unbelievable. Eight starts, five wins, two seconds and an eighth with everything that could go wrong for him at the PGA. It’s how he does it. He does it so humbly that you almost don’t realise how well he is doing it. You saw it coming last year when his ball-striking was off the charts but obviously his putter didn’t get going but he made that change of putter and it’s just amazing this year. It doesn’t seem to matter what type of golf course, what type of grass and he seems to be very strong mentally. People get obsessed looking at his feet and don’t actually realise that his golf ball is on a string. It’s remarkable and impressive and obviously everyone is going to try and stop him this week but I’m sure he’s hot favourite and he’s going to be tough to beat.”