The Open Championship left golf fans buzzing over Rory McIlroy’s recent comments about Bryson DeChambeau. It even started gaining traction across the sport. Even Scottie Scheffler weighed in on the matter earlier, giving his views on the sport, Bryson’s penalty, and DeChambeau. So when reporters asked ahead of the 3M Open whether he thinks rivalries are good for golf, they perhaps expected him to add to the Bryson-Rory feud. He had spoken about the incident and defended Bryson. Instead, Scheffler‘s unexpected stance took them by surprise and clarified that he has no interest in golf’s rivalry theater.

“I think golf’s different in a sense from a lot of other sports because my biggest rival week in and week out is the golf course that we’re playing. I mean, I could never stop somebody from doing anything in golf. I don’t think that rivalry is a big thing in golf just because, as I said, my biggest rivalry week in and week out is the golf course.

“I felt like when I played basketball, there would always be rivalries because you’re going to play defense against a person, and that is much more personal in a sense, but in golf, we’re always competing against ourselves on the golf course. I’ve never been a big fan of personal jabs.”

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Scheffler also highlighted he’s not a fan of personal jabs, a direct take on Rory’s jabs at Bryson. McIlroy had called DeChambeau’s conduct “performative” after he fought P&A officials for handing him a two-stroke penalty on the fifth, claiming he was doing it “for attention”. While many players picked sides, Scheffler refrained, although he had a ton to say. Speaking after the tournament, he said that the officials need to be stricter in the way they police players.

He defended DeChambeau by saying, “He’s a lot of things, but he is definitely not a cheater.”

Looking at his philosophical stance, the World No. 1 has made a clear distinction between golf and basketball in terms of rivalries. In basketball, teams create rivalries through confrontation, something that golf structurally lacks.

Team sports require teams to play together toward the same goal. In golf, however, every player faces the same course but under constantly moving conditions. Wind shifts, weather delays, pin positions, and rough and firm greens throughout the day. Scheffler, which makes the course itself a greater challenge than anybody else in the tournament. No two players ever face an identical form of toughness, even when they are paired together. That’s why, in Scheffler’s view, the real battle isn’t another player.

It’s also why Scheffler keeps returning to his own game rather than anyone else’s. Just this week, asked to rank his four major near misses this season, from runner-up at the Masters to T4 at the Open, he said he couldn’t separate them by frustration, admitting that he fell short of his own standards, and it stings every time.

Scheffler didn’t take names, but he has set standards that he does not see value in the theater of rivalry.