Yes, Scottie Scheffler put in another dominating performance in a major. He was certainly the best player on the course in Northern Ireland. The world #1 did win by 4 strokes against the field in the end. However, as easy as it may seem on paper, the reality was slightly different. Paired with him in the final round, Haotong Li proved to be the worst threat to Scheffler at Royal Portrush. And at one point, the Chinese golfer was only a few strokes away from tying with his group mate. And yet, NBC treated Li like he was a nobody.

In an attempt to show the dominance of The Open 2025 champion, NBC revealed a table comparing his achievements to those of Li’s. The only problem was, they only factored in the PGA Tour record, which the Chinese pro hasn’t exploited as often as the European circuit. That left Luke Elvy infuriated, and he took it upon himself to shed some light on the unjust treatment of the broadcast company.

Elvy tweeted a picture of the table with a quote, “File this under graphics that shit me. Haotong has won 4x on DPWT & another 4x (8 total) worldwide. For some reason Americans feel if someone hasn’t won on the PGAT the wins are redundant. It’s centric BS & NBC should be better.” As he confirmed, Haotong has won 4 DP World Tour titles. He has beaten strong fields in the past, including edging a victory away from Rory McIlroy & Tyrrell Hatton in the 2018 Omega Dubai Desert Classic. Li is not as underrated as NBC has tried to portray him.

Fans also agreed with what Elvy had to say, and they jumped in to criticize NBC for trying to Americanize golf. Let’s see what they had to say.

The internet fights back against the mistreatment of Haotong Li

Scottie Scheffler is certainly a beloved figure in the golf community. But even he wouldn’t try to downplay what Haotong Li has achieved outside the PGA Tour. So for NBC to use his name to show the DP World Tour pro as an inferior player would have never been acceptable. As one fan commented, “Awe, you as an American don’t recognize players outside the US? I watch G on sky, it’s all over the world. Not sure where u watch golf? There’s lpgat, Asian tour. Dpwt….all kinds of open golf fields if u look.”

They tried to show NBC that there is a lot more to golf than what Scheffler achieves on the American Men’s Tour. The LPGA Tour has been gaining a lot of viewers recently. With the FedEx Cup Fall season nearing, big events in the DP World Tour are also about to begin. Chances are, Scheffler won’t play in many of them.

Someone also pointed out, “If it wasn’t America, I’d conclude some mid manager thought the David vs Goliath angle might work. But America thrives on deception.” That has been the case for many European greats in the past. Colin Montgomerie is a great example of the same, as he faced a lot of discrimination when he tried to break into the PGA Tour. His achievements outside the United States were largely downplayed, and he faced a lot of issues adjusting to the criticism here. Despite all his achievements, Greg Norman held the same kind of grudge against the PGA Tour for discrediting his feats.

Taking the entire coverage into consideration, one of the comments read, “To be fair NBC hasn’t done a single thing well this week.” There were a few broadcast issues during the event. Ex-pro and expert, Smylie Kaufman, was heard cussing during one of Jon Rahm‘s putts, which was not taken too kindly by the fans. The network also jumped to an ad break during Rory McIlroy‘s crucial putt on the 13th hole in the second round.

Agreeing with everything Elvy had to say, another follower wrote, “Exactly! The PGA Tour is full of 💩. The only difference between the PGA Tour and the other world tours is the money payout, other than that, the quality of golf is awesome and in some occasions, better than the PGA Tour.” They believe that the PGA Tour’s only advantage is that they have great sponsorship deals. However, they wouldn’t have been able to achieve them without producing a good product.

Lastly, someone shed light on a serious error spotted by the fans, “Should be but they’re not…they can’t even be arsed to use recent pkayer images on their graphics. Amateur Hour R Us.” This was another graphic error that many had pointed out on X. NBC had used old pictures of players when showing their graphics or information related to them during broadcasts.

One of the most notable pictures that caught everyone’s attention was that of Tyrrell Hatton. When introducing him to the field for the tee, they used a beardless picture of him from back when he still was a PGA Tour player. That suggested that NBC was trying to avoid promoting LIV Golf. Fans found it mildly hilarious, but also quite surprising considering The Open 2025 was, well, open for everyone, including LIV Golf pros.

Haotong Li will be making a PGA Tour appearance this week in the 2025 3M Open. It will be interesting to see how he performs after coming so close to catching up with the best player in the Tour, Scottie Scheffler.