Team rooms are supposed to be sacred ground, a place where inside jokes stay inside. Scottie Scheffler could not resist taking a small dig at Kevin Kisner when the topic of Team USA’s traditions came up. Brandt Snedeker‘s American side is chasing an 11th consecutive Presidents Cup victory over Geoff Ogilvy’s Internationals. But while discussing whether rookie Jackson Koivun had faced any hazing, Scheffler pointed out that the team usually keeps its activities private.
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“Our thing is always like the stuff that’s in the team room, we’re always trying to keep it in the team room. Unless you’re Kisner, Kisner talks a lot about stuff we do,” Scheffler said with a laugh on Pardon My Take ahead of Thursday’s opening session at Medinah Country Club.
The comment came as Team USA discussed how the younger players are brought into the group. With Jackson Koivun making his Presidents Cup debut, the team has focused more on helping him settle in than putting him through any serious hazing. The team also made it clear that Jackson Koivun’s rookie status was not leading to any serious hazing.
Scheffler appears to have taken a light shot at Kevin Kisner on the same podcast. Asked whether the team hazes its newcomers, he said the group tries to keep team-room matters in the team room, then quipped that Kisner is the exception because he talks a lot about that kind of thing. The mug-shot shirt is the kind of detail that only surfaces because someone inside the U.S. team room talked, and that’s exactly what’s been bothering Scheffler lately. Speaking separately to reporters at Medinah, he addressed what he called a frustrating pattern of outside narratives about the American team’s chemistry.
“Sam actually wore the T-shirt with my mug shot to our team room last night,” Scheffler said, referring to teammate Sam Burns. “The joke continues to stay.” Scheffler is making his sixth U.S. team appearance and his third straight Presidents Cup.
“I think that’s something that’s probably been frustrating for us as American players,” Scheffler said, citing “some of the narratives that have gone on over the course of my team match-play career,” including “stupid rumors that simply aren’t true, like meeting in a different team room and the Americans aren’t a close team.”
This isn’t the first time the topic has hovered around Scheffler’s teams. He was most plainly alluding to “Hat-Gate” from the 2023 Ryder Cup, when a report claimed Patrick Cantlay stopped wearing his team cap over player pay and that the dispute had split the U.S. locker room. Cantlay called it “outright lies.” Wyndham Clark also pushed back on doubts about U.S. cohesion after last year’s Presidents Cup win. The difference is that Scheffler’s complaint is about inaccurate outside narratives, not teammates spilling real details, which makes the Burns and Kisner stories a slightly different case.
That frustration is notable given how often details from U.S. team rooms become public through players and assistant captains themselves. Kevin Kisner, a veteran of several Presidents Cup teams and a regular guest on the rival “Fore Play” podcast, has been one of the more candid voices about what happens behind the scenes. On the show, he described a heated on-course confrontation with International assistant captain Camilo Villegas at the 2024 Presidents Cup. More recently, he questioned the decision to hold this year’s event at Medinah, pointing to International captain Geoff Ogilvy’s role in the course’s redesign.
“Interesting dynamic for me that we’re going to a home location that the International captain was in charge of renovating,” Kisner said on “Fore Play.” “That to me sends all kinds of alarms.”
Why does it matter? The team room is where captains settle pairings, weigh form and decide who sits out a session. If those details leak, opponents can anticipate matchups, and a single heated exchange can be read as a sign of a fractured team, the kind of narrative Scheffler is pushing back on. That is why captains guard the room closely. A mug-shot T-shirt is harmless by comparison, but it shows how easily inside details travel once players start talking.
The team-room banter surfaced elsewhere in the interview as well. Asked about the chemistry inside the American group chat, Scheffler gave a self-deprecating answer, admitting he’s “probably the worst texter on the team,” while adding that he’s been impressed by the atmosphere inside the team room at Medinah this week.
The Burns connection goes back to Scheffler’s first Presidents Cup, when the two played alternate shot together. Scheffler said they agreed not to apologize to each other, then he cold-shanked a par-3 tee shot into the woods on about the ninth hole. Burns stared straight ahead and Scheffler’s only words to him were “good luck, man.”
Scheffler, meanwhile, seems more interested in enjoying the lighter side of team week. Between the mug-shot shirt joke and his comments about his texting habits, the U.S. team room sounds like a place filled with inside jokes and banter. That’s a more relaxed picture than some of the outside chatter suggests.
The Presidents Cup begins Thursday at Medinah Country Club. The U.S. will look to extend its dominant run in the event, holding a 13-1-1 all-time record. Scheffler and his teammates will soon find out whether that camaraderie carries over onto the course against Geoff Ogilvy’s International side.