Scottie Scheffler defends Bryson DeChambeau: ‘He is definitely not a cheater’

One day earlier, Rory McIllroy seemed to hit that American was breaking rules

Published Jul 19, 2026  •  2 minute read

Americans Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau shake hands after finishing their round on the 18th green on day two of the The 154th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale on July 17, 2026 in Southport, England. Photo by Michael Reaves /GETTY IMAGES

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SOUTHPORT, England — One day after Rory McIlroy’s vicious takedown of Bryson DeChambeau, World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler came to his defence.

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Following his final round at the Open Championship, where he finished tied for fourth at seven-under par, Scheffler defended the honour of polarizing golf and YouTube superstar DeChambeau.

A day earlier, McIlroy tore into DeChambeau, mainly with personal attacks on his personality by calling his often attention-drawing actions as “performative” and saying bluntly that he is “not fond of him.”

In the takedown, McIlroy also seemed to hint that the two-time major winner might have known that he was pushing boundaries, or even breaking rules, when he stomped around in the long grass beside his ball before hitting a recovery shot on Friday and received a two-stroke penalty. McIlroy said it “didn’t look good” when asked if he thought it was intentional.

That’s the aspect of DeChambeau’s actions that Scheffler whole-heartedly defended on Sunday.

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‘Not a cheater’

“All I’ll say is Bryson, I’ve known him for a long time, and he’s a lot of things, but he’s definitely not a cheater,” Scheffler said. “I’ve never seen him cheat once, whether we were having a putting contest on the putting green or chipping contest, or anytime we played amateur golf, I never saw anything suspicious.”

“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. We’ve seen penalties happen with — like you remember Jon Rahm a couple years ago at the Memorial when his ball moved in the rough, and it’s like to the naked eye, can you really tell that?”

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Scheffler went on to say that perhaps going forward golfers should be held to a stricter standard of the rules, saying that players might be pushing the envelope more than they should.

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“I think sometimes it’s just a difficult position in the game of golf. When I was growing up, if this was the line between things that were — like 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 rule, you always tried to stray really far that way. 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.”

But if Scheffler was trying to get just one thing across it’s that, in his opinion, DeChambeau is an honourable golfer.

“It’s a tough line to kind of cross. So that’s why it’s hard for me to say anything like this. Bryson is a guy that I’ve known for a really long time. Like I said, he’s not a cheater.”

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