Xander Schauffele addressed the media ahead of this week’s BMW Championship.
PGA Tour
Xander Schauffele checked his phone as he sat down for Tuesday’s media availability ahead of the date BMW Championship.
“What, I’m early?” he asked. “I usually expect most of you to clear up.”
It was an apt line from Schauffele. The assembled group of journalists laughed; World No. 2 is ridiculously low. But he was also telling the truth; The World No. 2 tends not to lie, even when he’s being mocked. After all, he BEN tend to schedule his press conferences at 3, 4 or 5 p.m., by which time other players have spoken and other news has come out and the denizens of the media centers have grown differently.
But maybe he should show up early more often.
Schauffele held court for the next 30-plus minutes, discussing everything from his season against Scottie Scheffler to the annual salaries of NFL quarterbacks to dealing with anger on the golf course. Schauffele may still carry a stoic, steady, understated reputation despite his major championship wins and the fact that he plays the second best golf in the world. But with better tournament scores come better questions, and with better questions come better answers. On the mic, Schauffele is hitting his stride: direct, honest, funny, deep.
Here’s what he told us.
1. He would take Scottie Scheffler’s season over his own.
Golf media types have debated Scheffler’s vs. Schauffele’s season. And of course, it’s possible he’s just humble, but here was Schauffele’s case:
“I’ve won twice and he’s won seven. We both have a lot of top 10s. That’s how I’m drafting it. I know you put it that way.”
Of course, Schauffele’s two majors surpass Scheffler’s. But Scheffler won the Players (over Schauffele, who faded on Sunday) and the Olympics (where Schauffele was the proud defending champion), and if those things even out, the additional Signature Event wins serve as something of a draw. The Scottie Advantage.
“He’s played incredible golf. I feel like we’re all following it. I’ve probably done the best job to get them as close as possible, but it’s still a long way off,” he said.
2. There’s a reason he looks so stoic on the golf course.
When was the last time Schauffele dropped a club or was visibly disappointed during a tournament?
“I don’t know. This is a good question. For you, at least,” Schauffele deadpanned, giving Doug Ferguson his beloved a smile. Associated Press the reporter who asked the question. But then he gave a profound answer.
“I’m often frustrated,” he said. “I quickly try to correct myself, just knowing that it doesn’t do me any good. I don’t operate well when I’m too angry or too happy. If I ever talk too much on the golf course, I lose focus on what I’m trying to do, and if I get too angry, I lose focus on what I’m trying to do, too. I try to stay in the middle lane of my mind.”
3. There are some interesting stories there…
“My first year on the Korn Ferry (Tour), I went through Q-school and got fired, and here I am, a kid just out of college and I already got my card, that’s pretty special. Then I made 25 grand, I’m cruising (caddie) Austin with me every week and I pay him more than I’m making, we’re together and I’m angry all the time.
“It was a lot of self-reflection, I think, at the time to realize that I was really frustrated and I felt like I was playing good golf, I was just missing one-shot cuts and I was just having these mini-meltdowns all the time. E I did my job, got it right and then got my (PGA Tour) card my rookie year.
“Same thing (a year later), I was about to lose my card and then I got into the US Open on Monday and the rest is history. I was able to return it. Two years of beating myself up in hotel rooms and just realizing that I need to stop acting like a child in my own way, that’s how I came to this conclusion.”
4. He has a short memory – but still remembers his “worst loss”.
Schauffele was two shots away from defending his Sentry title at Kapalua in 2020, but made three shots to putt the ball in the hole. From there, he remembers never having a chance.
“I got into a playoff and then I was so shocked by the triple goals, I had an internal meltdown and I took a chip off the edge or something – I can’t remember. I’m too good to be a starfish when it comes to things; i forget Three second memory here and forget it.
“But I remember playing three in there, I was so excited, amped up, shot into the wind, hit it seven yards, missed it, was in complete shock, then had to go to a playoff. I had no chance of winning that, of course.”
Schauffele also recalls the consequences:
“I remember sitting in the hotel room looking at the floor and my wife Maya is asking me if I’m okay and I said, ‘You’re going to have to give me at least 10 or 15 minutes.’
There have been happier times since then.
5. He doesn’t think about money while he’s betting.
I’ve often wondered this while watching late on Sundays; when the pros are competing but have no chance of winning, are they doing the mental math of how much each shot is worth? Not in real time, Schauffele said.
“I honestly don’t think there’s any pro here that’s sitting there, like, oh, if I make this putt, I’m going to make another great 50 or another great 80. Someone might say after the fact, but when you’re there, you’re trying to make an octopus that’s on the right side. You’re sitting there like, okay, I’ve hit this putt a few times, let’s see if I can get this thing in.
“Then you hit a putt and you want to go straight to the green and hit an eight-footer that’s on the right side.”
6. He thinks golfers and money have gotten a bad rap.
“The media has been an interesting thing for me the last two or three years,” Schauffele said, when asked about it increasingly hot topic money in pro golf. “The news I read is ridiculous, it’s really negative. It’s been painted really negatively on golf, which is good. I think people love to hate on everything these days.
“But when I look at other sports, when someone gets a $300 million contract, there’s all these positive comments about how someone got their purse or worked so hard to get this and they deserve it, things like that. It’s interesting to me. I think maybe golf is a gentleman’s game and you shouldn’t talk about money – but all the media wants to do is talk about money.”
Xander Schauffele calls out the hypocrisy of golf money – using NFL QBs
James Colgan
Ironically, Schauffele added, the players who make the most money think the least about it.
“I mean, winning $25 million (FedEx first place prize) would be really cool and really nice, but I don’t think it’s going to change my life and I can tell you if I lose and I play I’m bad I’ll be more upset about playing poorly and not being able to peak at the right time – more than losing money.”
7. Speaking of money (and Scheffler): he thinks Scottie deserves every penny.
Should players be paid as centre-backs? If Scheffler wins the FedEx Cup, he will be over $60 million in course earnings this year; The highest paid NFL QBs make around $55 million per year. But as Schauffele pointed out, Scheffler’s season is a bit of a unicorn.
“Scottie’s won seven times, I think that includes Olympic gold – maybe eight, I don’t want to mess that up – and he’s done a lot more than everybody else,” he said. “If you look at how much the 10th best player in the world has won, it won’t smell like what Scottie has done. (He’s right: 10th on the Tour’s money list is Shane Lowry with $5.5 million.) It just shows you how well Scottie has played in these big tournaments.
“You look at quarterback no. 1, he’s getting $60 million and then the No. 1 quarterback. 10 is getting 52, and then number 15 is getting 39 or 40,” he continued. “So there seems to be more money in football with TV and everything that surrounds it. It’s hard to compare them one-on-one because Scottie has just been so much more elite and I think he deserves everything he’s getting.”
8. He would like the American captain elections to prioritize one thing.
Is it better to pick a veteran or a rookie for an American team — say, for this fall’s Presidents Cup? If they are doors A and B, Schauffele is choosing C…
“I don’t know … more than the veteran or the rookie, probably more the course horse, in all honesty,” he said. “I think your goal is to win the Cup at all costs. You have to pick the right guy for the right course.”
…and D. “Of course he has to be good with everyone,” he added.
He brushed aside the veteran-rookie dichotomy — “it doesn’t really matter,” he said — but projected for next month.
“Montreal, apparently it’s not a crazy big estate, it’s older with greens, maybe modern, is what I’ve heard. I’m thinking of a tight type of course that you have to hit a lot of fairway, the rough is going to be up, it’s got to be a good putter, hitting shots on elevated greens – so maybe a little higher – hitter of the ball.”
9. He’s still in the hunt for world No. 1.
Scheffler has been so dominant that the gap between world number 1 (Scheffler, 18.37 points) and world number 2 (Schauffele, 11.38 points) is larger than Schauffele’s lead over world number 12 Tommy Fleetwood. But that hardly means Schauffele has given up the chase.
“It’s a very big target of mine, yes, and I’ve been told, yes, that Scottie is an incredible player and for a few years I would be (World No. 1). But it’s not really good enough, is it? That doesn’t take away from what I did or how I feel. I am proud of the work I have done and the people around me who have helped me. It’s just a result. I keep saying it, but it really is. I’ll just keep knocking. That’s what I do.”
That’s what he does.
10. Golf was love at first sight.
Schauffele was asked if he would rather be an NFL QB and shrugged it off, stating that he was “very happy” looking in the mirror most days. He also spoke about his youth football days, and the desire to have more control over the outcome of a team sport.
“Then I saw my dad play golf, and we talked about how it’s an individual sport, and once I started hitting golf balls on the range and seeing a golf ball fly, it was kind of love at first sight,” said he. . “For me, I’ve always just loved playing golf. I’ve always loved hitting golf balls.”
He has become very good at it in the years since. He may not love the game the same way — “sitting on the range as a 12-year-old, 13-year-old hitting 600 to 1,000 balls, I don’t do that anymore,” he said — but he’s in the country of this he learned to enjoy the process.
“I really enjoy that challenge,” he said. “It’s a constant battle. It’s really hard to win. New opportunities always seem to present themselves. That’s the part of golf that I enjoy the most.”
