'It sucks for us': Scottie Scheffler's dominance has broken other professional golfers

What else can you do?

That's the question many golfers are asking themselves after Scottie Scheffler won the 2025 Open Championship at Royal Portrush on Sunday, capturing his fourth major championship and fourth victory of the year. It also strengthened his grip on the No. 1 ranking in the world, and this week was further proof that when Scheffler is on his game, he's far and above better than anyone else in professional golf.

Many of Scheffler's peers were asked about what it's like seeing his name on top of a leaderboard is like, and their answers speak volumes about his dominance. Here's the best of what Scheffler's competitors said praising his recent run:

Rory McIlroy

"None of us could hang with Scottie this week. He's an incredible player. He's been dominant this week. Honestly, he's been dominant for the last couple years. He is the bar that we're all trying to get to.

"In a historical context, you could argue that there's only maybe two or three players in the history of the game that have been on a run, the one that Scottie's been on here for the last 24 to 36 months. Incredibly impressive.

"Yeah, he's a very worthy winner. Also, he's a great person, and I think he's a wonderful ambassador for our game as well. I'm really happy for him and Meredith and his family."

Xander Schauffele

"I don't think we thought the golfing world would see someone as dominant as Tiger come through so soon, and here's Scottie sort of taking that throne of dominance. You can't even say he's on a run. He's just been killing it for over two years now.

"He's a tough man to beat, and when you see his name up on the leaderboard, it sucks for us."

Jordan Spieth

"He doesn't care to be a superstar. He's not transcending the game like Tiger did. He's not bringing it to a non-golf audience necessarily. He doesn't want to go do the stuff that a lot of us go do, corporately, anything like that.

"He just wants to get away from the game and separate the two because I know that he -- at one time, he felt it was too much, that he was taking it with him, and whenever he made that switch, I don't know what it was, but he has hobbies. He's always with his family. They're always doing stuff.

"I think it's more so the difference in personality from any other superstar that you've seen in the modern era and maybe in any sport. I don't think anybody is like him."

Jon Rahm

"I first-hand got a taste of how good he can be at the Ryder Cup on Whistling that Sunday. I didn't necessarily play bad. I just never really had a chance to win. I think it's after that a lot of his really good play came, right after that year. So '22 on, obviously, when he won the Masters in '22, you have to acknowledge him as a phenomenal player. Even before that, he was already world class.

"Very few players have been able to do what he's done. He's won three majors in three years -- or four years. No, three years. Won nine times last season, and he keeps going on. He's doing what everybody wants to do."

Shane Lowry

"I played with him the first two days, and honestly I thought he was going to birdie every hole. It was incredible to watch. I said to [NBC on-course reporter] Bones actually, he was with our group, we talked about it, I saw his comments yesterday, it is incredible to watch."

Tommy Fleetwood

"It's amazing. I suppose he's earned the right to be spoke about how people speak about him.

"Yeah, phenomenal player. I think having someone like that to keep us looking up to and keep us all chasing, it's great. I think, obviously if he keeps going the way he is, we're all going to look back and talk about him in the same breath as some of the all-time greats, and he's played in our generation.

"We'll see. It looks like he's going to be four majors in, three down against a career grand slam, so very impressive."

Matt Fitzpatrick

"I think Scottie Scheffler is a different class, obviously. He's literally a full shot probably better than the next best player in the world, let alone myself, who's not the second best player in the world."

Harris English

"It's incredible. I wasn't playing professional golf when Tiger was at his peak, early 2000s, mid 2000s. But it's pretty incredible. Just how good of a frontrunner he is. He's improved his putting. There's no stat that he's bad in. It's like, how do you beat this guy?

"But he works so hard, and I see him in the gym all the time, see him practicing. He's one of the hardest work I see I've ever seen, and to have No. 1 in the world working that hard, it just makes it that much harder to catch him. What he's doing right now is incredible."

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: British Open 2025: Competitors describe Scottie Scheffler's dominance