Xander

Schauffele

Schauffele arrives with good vibes at the course, gaining strokes to the field in 18 of his last 20 rounds at the Donald Ross design. While his history should help him, he will start seven shots off the lead of Scottie Scheffler. “Nothing to lose. I think a lot of guys who are pretty far back feel that way. So just need to kind of have a really good Thursday, Friday, to position yourself for the weekend and if you can kind of get within some sort of touch within two, three shots it means you played really well the first two rounds and maybe give yourself a chance come the weekend.”

Schauffele has seven career PGA TOUR titles and the sixth came at this event last year. He’s yet to successfully defend a title but he’ll give it another shot this week. “You have good feelings and memories, and for whatever reason, us pros, you know, play well on courses or, you know, certain courses.” The San Diego State product arrives with nine straight top-25 finishes so he’s certainly playing steady golf. He currently sits just outside of the top 10 in the FedExCup race.

Schauffele was 4-over thru three holes at the last major (PGA Championship) but flipped that script entirely today. He had everything working today as he walked off the course ranked 7th or better in all four sub-categories of strokes gained. “It’s kind of a mixed bag. I think the only place we were able to get away with a few mis-hits would be off the tee. Coming into greens, like you said, you need to be pretty clean. When I wasn’t, I was still able to make birdie because I made some long putts so probably try and clean that up as the days go on.” This is far from his first taste of success at the U.S.Open as he’s now been T8 or better after round one in five of his seven appearances at the event. He’s turned in top-15 finishes in all six of those previous starts with five doubling as top-7 finishes.

Schauffele circled birdies 3 and 7 while overnight leader Wyndham Clark was slow out of the gate. “I wouldn’t really put it on the driver, just I didn’t do what I needed to do at important times. When you’re trying to win on Sunday, you need to put the screws down and put some pressure on the guys leading and I didn’t do that.” The San Diego State product won three times in 2022 but still searching for his first win this year. On the bright side, Schauffele now has five straight top 10s and is trending ahead of the season’s second major.

Schauffele circled five birdies and an eagle on the opening 15 holes to find himself with an early lead at Quail Hollow Club. The eagle came from 42'6" at the par-5 10th. He stumbled home with bogeys on two of the last three holes, including a water ball at the closing 18th. “I really had it going there. Ball was on a string for a bit, did everything really well. It’s a championship-style golf course, so played really well through 15 holes and then had a little hiccup there coming in, so it is what it is.” Schauffele arrived with back-to-back top 5s on his game log and he’s not showing any sign of slowing down just yet.

Schauffele has seven top 10s in 12 events played this season but hasn’t reached his peak form yet. Speaking on playing in the elevated events he had this to say, “Just play your butt off because then you can earn some time off and maybe take off a course that you don’t like. That’s just how I look at it, like I said, I have to earn my time off. I haven’t do that, so here I am playing pretty much all of them.” Schauffele is just 100th in strokes gained off-the-tee this season but says he was aware of that and feels much better about his driving in recent events. He’s currently +1700 in the outright betting markets and -110 for a top-20 finish. He twirled a T14 in his most recent start at Quail Hollow (2021 Wells Fargo Championship).

The California couple settled for a 5-under 67 during four-ball action in round one. It left them far off the pace but they responded with the lowest foursomes score in the event’s history (63) on Friday. They backed that up with a pair of 66s over the weekend to post a respectable T4 finish. Schauffele spoke on fatigue after the event, “I can probably talk for both of us. Like he said, we didn’t have our best stuff throughout the course of the tournament, but there’s not really anything to work on. Probably just try to get as many hours of sleep as possible in the next couple of days and don’t touch your clubs.” We should expect to see both of the stars back in action for the Wells Fargo Championship in two weeks.

The duo shot 5-under 67 in fourballs and were much closer to missing the cut than successfully defending their title. But in what is normally the more difficult format, foursomes, the two combined to shoot 9-under 63 and vault into contention. Schauffele and Cantlay made seven birdies and an eagle to record the lowest alternate-shot round since this became a team event in 2017. They finished the round tied for second, with several teams still on the course. In winning the title last year, the two shot 68 and 72 in the two alternate-shot rounds. Saturday will be fourballs, with Sunday wrapping with foursomes.

It’s certainly great to have a guy like Schauffele as your teammate but, even more so, it means he won’t (likely) give you the needle. On Tuesday, Max Homa called Schauffele the Tour’s most underrated trash talker. Schauffele replied on Wednesday: “Wow, that’s an interesting call out, first of its kind for me. I like to have fun. I like to needle at people. ...if you don’t like being needled, just ignore me. That’s kind of how that works. When people start ignoring me, then I move on to the next target.” This is the sixth edition of this as a team event. No one has ever successfully defended.

Schauffele was dialed with his irons all week, gaining 7.4 strokes on approach (2nd), helping him lead the way in strokes gained tee-to-green. Talking about his lack of success at Harbour Town, “I’ve never played well here. This is my fourth appearance, and I can’t think of a time I’ve finished inside the top 60. It was nice to sort of get over that hump, play a little bit better. I do enjoy playing the golf course. It’s kind of bit me in the past, and it was nice to make a couple birdies coming in so I have a good taste in my mouth.” Schauffele now has a full confidence tank ahead of next week’s Zurich Classic where he and Patrick Cantlay will be defending their title.