Xander Schauffle took the ‘pan in the face’. Then came something amazing

If you haven’t heard, the cuts are suddenly all rage in golf.

A year after voting PGA Tour on a new Signature event series In order to reduce field sizes and-in some cases-Elective Golf Line with 36 holes, Cutting is back with a vengeance in the new year. Golf Channel’s Friday afternoon Teleks are now largely based on the race to stay within the weekend, while players and sponsors have expressed their support for competitive juice added to the tournament by removing the playing field in half.

No player better embodies the argument for the line than Xander Schauffle, who entered this week Arnold Palmer Invitational Clutching Golf longer made. In fact, Friday marked exactly three years since Schauffle’s last lost cut. Fifty -seven events have followedIncluding a pair of big championship wins, and Schauffe has played his way on weekends at all.

And that, dear reader, is what brings us to what happened in the 13th box tentacle.

There was an impressive day for Schauffle, up to about 30 minutes ago. After a first five -step opening 77 put his hopes on the weekend, Xander defeated his way through the opening of 10 holes in Bay Hill, recording three birds and not a single trick. With conditions that strengthen and mark the balloons around it, Schauffle played itself – as usual – again on the right side of the line. But then the disaster came.

“I was sitting in a beautiful, as a cozy of a country, as I could be in Bay Hill,” Schauffle said on Friday afternoon. “Then it was absolutely hit in the face with a pan at 11.”

A pan in the skull, or more precisely, a pair of double bogs. The first arrived in the 11th hole, the courtesy of one approach fired in the water, followed by another pair at 12, thanks to a short period of ping-pong with short games. Now, at 13, Schauffle was two shots over the forecast line with four of the most difficult holes in the still golf course to play.

“A kind of confusing some really light things,” said Schauffle after. “I want to say, a really bad pace and a seriously bad execution about the greens on par-5. So it was a very stressful day, beautiful to me.”

For many players, the four -stroke swing may have been a knocker. But not for Schauffle. He gripped his intention at eight meters to 13 and poured into Putt for Birdie, then drained 30-legs for Birdie in the 14th and 16th holes. Almost as soon as he would give four shots, he would deepened The other three, moving to three above and a blow inside the forecast line. A noise in 18 would not be enough to disassemble the last furious ram: he would make it again, extending his cut bar to 58.

Schauffle’s performance was extremely impressive taking into account the context. The 31-year-old was not just playing big golf under the gun in one of the most difficult stretches of the tournament, he was doing this only in his second early 2025 after losing the best part of the last two months with an international strain. The return of Friday afternoon was impressive in itself, but given these other factors, it was honest.

“Even today, going double sitting in a truly beautiful place, it was an easy time to irritate. But I said earlier during the week I will have to go to a special place to play good golf, and I had to dig deep,” Schauffe said. “So it was good practice on that front. Austin and I are proud of our cut bar, no doubt. Is it what we think of? No. But usually when you focus on victory, you make a lot of cuts and end somewhere in the middle.”

Of course, Schauffle’s cut beam is the longest in the tour now but is compared to the longest in the tournament HistoRy. That honor belongs Tiger Woodswhich had a 142 straight -made whisk. Other impressive impressive all the time cut? Byron Nelson in 113, Jack Nicklaus in 105, and Hale Irwin at 86.

Even with his current belt, Schauffle remains at least one year removed from reaching Irwin, and several years from Nicklaus, Nelson or Woods. This is a long road, much farther than the catastrophe closely avoided Friday afternoon at Arnold Palmer. But you can’t get there without much good golf, and a lot in a timely Good Golf Xander Schauffle has had a lot of two over the last three years.

“I knew it would be difficult and I’m glad I’m proud to make the weekend,” Schauffle said. “I know it sounds funny, but I’m really happy to get two golf rounds on a really tough property to try to prepare for hard tours for the rest of the year.”

Maybe it’s funny for the world’s third rank player to be happy that he did the weekend, but it certainly didn’t sound that Friday afternoon in Bay Hill.

In golf as in life, half the challenge is emerging.

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