The Genesis Scottish Open is a special event for defending champion Chris Gotterup. Since winning last year, he has picked up three more victories: the Sony Open, the WM Phoenix Open, and the John Deere Classic. He also made a gigantic leap in OWGR: from 158th entering last year’s Scottish Open to No. 7 currently. Even though a lot has changed in his professional life, not much has changed in his personal life. 

“My personal life has not changed a whole lot,” Gotterup said at the press conference on Tuesday. “Everything’s kind of still the same. But golf-wise, it’s changed a lot… I feel like everyone’s asked [me] what [I’ve] done differently, and I don’t think I’ve done much differently. If I knew, I would have done it a lot longer ago.”

Gotterup will now tee off with Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, and 152 others on Thursday, July 9, at The Renaissance Club for the massive $9,000,000 purse. And despite having out-dueled McIlroy last year in the same tournament, the odds appear to favor the World No. 1 and McIlroy over the 26-year-old, per bet365. 

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This suggests the five-time PGA Tour winner still has a lot to prove. But he doesn’t view it that way. 

“I think my whole career has been proving myself to myself. I don’t really care to prove myself to other people. I just think I know what I’m capable of, and these last couple months/years have been rewarding, but also once you kind of get a taste of it, I think you want more and more.”

While he might not feel the need to prove himself to anyone, the 26-year-old admitted that there have been moments when he was, “like, wow, this is kind of crazy.” However, Gotterup has decided not to be overwhelmed by such moments and to stand his ground. He credits this mindset to his success in last year’s Scottish Open. 

“I played in groups and played well, and kind of faded away on the weekends, but without that experience, I don’t think I would have been able to stand up on the tee on Sunday and play well.”

Besides the incredible season Gotterup has had, the defending Scottish Open champion also shed light on his social media tradition after each PGA Tour win. 

Chris Gotterup reveals the origins of social media video tradition

Since last year’s Scottish Open, Gotterup has made it a tradition to post the “Tell ’em to bring me my money” video meme on X. This tradition has carried over to 2026, with all three wins. While Gotterup has already spoken about the origins of the meme, it came up again on Tuesday. 

“It doesn’t really mean much at all to me,” Gotterup said. “It’s more in college. We won a bunch at OU my last year, and I just sent it in the group chat after we won, and everyone thought it was funny. I kept it going when I won Myrtle Beach, tweeted it, and thought it was pretty funny. 

“Then I just kept it going every season. I liked tweeting it. If I can tweet it a lot, then things are going well.”

Gotterup, of course, played college golf at two universities. He spent four years at Rutgers University, where he earned Big Ten Player of the Year honors. The Easton, Maryland, native then transferred to the University of Oklahoma for his final collegiate season, where the meme began.

With the Scottish Open just around the corner, only time will tell whether the 26-year-old will get to post the meme again.