MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 11, 2021

Xander Schauffele

Quick Quotes

Q. What were the range of emotions like for you out there today?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I never gave up. It was pretty wild, I'd say. Kind of a weird start. It almost took the edge off. Kind of a -- I knew the 1st through 5, if you could be even par, it would be a really good score. I imagined to play 5 the way I did all week, which is 5-over for the week or even worse.

I fought hard. I felt like I made it exciting at the end, hit a really good shot on 16. I committed to it. I hit a perfect shot. We thought it was down left to right. It was not down left to right, and the rest is history.

Q. After 5, what did you do to regroup and get back in the mix?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I'm playing really well. It wasn't that hard to get back. I mean, I hit a drive out there to the right, which is a miss. Those bunkers, you might as well put red stakes around those bunkers. They're basically a hazard. I hit a drive out to the right, which I thought was okay. I hit it kind of hard into the bushes, which was shocking.

It was just -- I'm playing really well. I knew I have a lot of birdies in me, which I did, and I can hold my head up high.

Q. Can you feel like going through the pain that a lot of champions have gone through at Augusta, when you get close to the jacket?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, for sure. It's another lesson to put in the memory bank. 2019, I had a rookie hiccup moment of, oh, my goodness, I'm leading the Masters. This year I was chasing. I'm playing better than I was in 2019, and I made a mistake on shot selection and wind. If you look at my second shot after I dropped, I hit a 9 iron that went downwind. I think the way that thing flew, it flattened out and flew 160 yards. Austin and I just kind of painfully laughed at each other and said, 'Well, I guess it switched again.'

It is what it is. I think I just need to hit a different shot in there.

Q. What was Hideki like all day with you trying to chase him down?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Man, he was something else. He played like a winner needs to play. He was like a robot. Not that I was going to scare him. I was nine back at one point or seven back. 16, I really would have loved to have put more pressure on him there, but basically gave him the tournament at that point.

Q. What did you think on the tee at 16, you cut it down to two?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Let's make a 1. I hit a perfect 8 iron. It was 184 yards. I can hit my 8 iron 180 yards out here. I turned it right to left. The wind was into left to right. It got smoked and eaten up. You could kind of see it. The ball hovered there.

So I was chasing. I was still two back. Hideki is a great left to right iron player. I figured, if I hit it close, he was going to hit it right on top. I was in full chase mode, so I have no regrets from that aspect.

Q. What did you think on 15 when his ball did go in the water?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I didn't know -- I'm surprised he went for the green. I think, if he had to do it over again, for how good his wedges have been this week, I think he would have laid it back. It doesn't matter whatsoever right now, but he definitely made it interesting for me personally at that time. I definitely got a little bit hungry there out of that bunker and a little over eager on 16 probably.

Q. How do you personally deal with the close calls? Do you replay things through the week?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: It's just hard. It's hard to win out here. Especially at this tournament. I think I'll throw 16 in the memory bank. I think a lot of great shots into 16 are left to right. High cuts into that mound. I've been hitting a good high cut all week. I just didn't think of it at that time. I hit like a hard draw 8-iron, and it wasn't the shot.

Moving forward, just kind of throw it in the memory bank. I'm going to keep collecting thoughts. Hopefully, I keep coming back here for years to come, and the goal is to win one day.

Q. Will this hurt for a while?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I finished in second. I finished second a lot. I didn't even finish second this time. I've had worse second place finishes. Not that I'm getting used to it, but this is all credit to moving along, forward. I think, once I do win again, it will be a nice moment for me and my team, and I'll be comfortable at that time.

So I'm going to keep tacking this on as take the positive out of this and move along.

Q. Do you think the bunker shot at 15 was going to go in?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I had a lot of close calls today. Hey, it didn't. I'm trying to make every shot out here, so it would have been cool if it did go in.

Q. Can you appreciate for a moment what this probably means in Japan?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: For sure. No one really wants to talk about how much pressure is on him. You look at the media that follows him. You look at what he's done in his career. He's a top ranked player with a ton of pressure on him, and that's the hardest way to play. He's able to do it, and he's the first countryman to win the tournament, a major championship.

Everyone was hoping and thought he was going to win one a long time ago, and he kind of lost a little bit of form. I know his team relatively well, and he kept working hard through all of it. So big kudos to him and his team. I'm sure a lot of people are having some beers over there.

Q. You kind of started the season with two Masters in a row, I mean, in five months, and then you have big tournaments, Torrey Pines, the U.S. Open at home, and then Ryder Cup. How much are you looking forward to that?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I'm really excited. I'm very comfortable over the ball. This is the best I feel like I've hit the ball in a long time. Just my ability to hit the shot I'm seeing, just the windows and everything. This sucks a lot, but I am very much looking forward to golfing more in the future here.

Q. What were the nerves like early on?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Okay. I was calm. 3 was an error. I didn't listen to my caddie. I tried to bump it. It wasn't wet like yesterday. It didn't skip. He said, just chunk a shot up on the green, over the green. I'm trying to hit par. I'm trying to hit this hero hook bounce wedge, and it's going to roll down there to a foot.

It's Augusta National. You've got to respect it at times. I didn't there early, and I kind of got in a bad kind of groove early in the round, but at no point did I feel uncomfortable or make sort of any mental errors, I'd say.

Q. So many guys are over par through seven. Hideki was under. Can you just put into perspective the challenge of that front seven?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: It's hard. 5 is -- I mean, 5 is one of the hardest holes. It probably is the hardest hole out here, I'd say. I'd put my money on that. 1's tricky. 2 is kind of a hole they take a deep breath on. 3 is really hard. That pin is difficult. 4, the wind was kind of into cut going across. 5 is impossible. 6 is kind of a break, but if you kind of hit down that bottom left side, you're struggling to two-putt. And 7, if you hit the fairway, you're super happy. If you don't, you're really scrambling.

It's a fun first seven holes to a golf tournament, and I think everyone appreciates it.