Scottie Scheffler sees golf Majors like tennis Grand Slams as US Open looms

OAKMONT – Scottie Scheffler sees golf’s Major tournaments like Grand Slam tennis championships, with finesse events like the Masters and strength tests like this week’s US Open at Oakmont.

The world No. 1, who was the 2022 and 2024 Masters champion, comes off a victory at last month’s PGA Championship and sees new challenges at Oakmont the same way the red clay at Roland Garros offers a different tennis test than a hardcourt US Open.

“I kind of equate some of the Major tests to the Majors in tennis,” Scheffler said on June 10. “You’re playing on a different surface. You’ve got grass, clay and then the hardcourt and it’s a different style of game.”

Augusta National offers undulating greens but almost no rough to encourage shotmaking, while Oakmont brings a US Open with deep rough, tricky bunkers and fast sloped greens.

“The US Open compared to the Masters is a completely different type of test,” Scheffler added.

“At the Masters you have a lot more shotmaking when you get around the greens because it’s a lot of fairway, there’s pine straw, there’s not really the rough factor.

“Then when you get here, it’s a lot of hacking out of the rough. You still have to be extremely precise but when you talk about strength and power, that becomes more of a factor at these tournaments because when you hit it in the rough you’ve got to muscle it out of there.”

There is no picking one as better or worse than another, just as with the tennis Slams. It is a matter of style.

“It’s just a different type of test than you see at the Masters. Both of them are fantastic tests. I don’t know if one of them is better than the other, but they’re just different,”