THE 150TH OPEN

July 14, 2022

Xander Schauffele

Mixed Zone

Q. Great group, some great play out there, Rory, yourself and Collin. Assessment of your round and energy from your fellow partners?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Overall, it's a pretty relaxing day, I'd say, the first round of a major. But a lot of good, a little bit of bad. And day one in the books.

Q. Were you expecting it to be as slow as it was or were you kind of surprised?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I was not expecting it to wait on pretty much every hole on the back nine. I thought we handled those holes fairly well, considering the long wait there. But yeah, I guess when it's firm and the ball's rolling out to 400 yards, everyone's going to wait.

Q. Do you talk about something else? What do you do?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: It's Thursday, it's not too crazy. If it's Sunday you're in the final group, you're sitting there waiting with a one-shot lead on every hole, it's going to be tense.

Q. You said you were a little rushed on Sunday night -- that's how you felt heading into The Open. What were your three days of prep like?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I think Austin probably walked, he probably could have walked to America with how many steps he took around the property. I trusted a lot what he said, his lines. And the course is not softening up. I think his hard work paid off.

Q. Tricky or easy to find a balance about, everybody talks about being patient, but still, you know, taking the chance to be aggressive, when possible?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, I think so. There's a few holes we can get after it. You can drive it on a few greens. Trouble lurks. I got a little greedy on 17 there, thinking I could fly it up top. That was kind of the only lush part of the golf course. Got a bit of a jumper there and hit it on the road. So that led to a bogey. And besides that I thought I was pretty patient for the most part.

Q. Were you surprised at all by the difficulty of the hole locations on Thursday?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I heard whispers and rumours out there they're going to trick it up as much as possible because it's too easy. I don't really know what course they're talking about.

But with the wind like this, it can be easy-ish, I guess, or not super hard to make birdies; but if the wind picked up another 10 miles an hour, it would be a lot different story here.

Q. (Indiscernible) the putter on the Road Hole. What gave you the sense it was the best control for that shot?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I just watched some other guys do it. I actually didn't practise it in the practise round. I used a 4-iron in the practise round and then saw someone else putt on TV when I was having dinner at home. And it looked like a good idea.

Q. How many holes are birdie holes, in your mind?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I don't know. It depends on the wind.

Q. How similar are the conditions there over a couple of days at the Scottish Open? It was great preparation and a great victory. Is there a comparison between the two conditions?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: It was just much windier over at Renaissance Club. I'm assuming it's going to get windy here. But until then, yeah, you can be more aggressive with the wind being 10-ish, I'd say.

Q. Did they use most of the difficult hole locations today, or because of the nature of the greens there's just plenty of them?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, I think with the wind and -- they're going to try to make it as fair as possible and hard. So I think, I saw northeast in there at some point which hopefully I'm not out on the course for on the front nine, that's into right to left on the first seven holes which is pretty beastly in my mind.

So there's a chance I'm out there for it and going to have to buckle down if that's the case.

Q. Have you played a course this firm before?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Carnoustie maybe. I can't tell. I think I hit like a 100-yard putt at Carnoustie. And I'm pretty sure you can probably hit a putt on the green on 18 from about 150 yards out from that cart path.

Q. How do you feel about where you stand after one round?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, in touch. I didn't think anyone would shoot 8-under today. So good playing there. But in touch, I'd say.

Q. I know you've spoken about this many times. And after the Travelers as well, how much do you experience in Tokyo, obviously golf still relatively new in the games, how much did that do for your career, your confidence, closing when you needed to close and making it happen?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Monkey off the back in Japan, no doubt. With the gold medal being a big thing, that helps. Most of the experience I'm going to pull from is going to be from these past couple of weeks. I used the Olympics to be successful these past couple of weeks and you kind of just ladder up, I guess. I'll always cherish that moment. Not much to think about on a Thursday, to be completely honest.

Q. What have you learned about your link style since 2017 over your first win over at Royal Birkdale? How has it progressed in five years here?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I enjoy it. I enjoy playing the ball down, hitting creative shots and trying to think your way around the golf course. I enjoy that style of golf.

Q. Is there some comparison, the home of golf, the legends here and the Olympic Games, and maybe not necessarily specific to golf, but it is the Olympic Games, is there some comparison between the two?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: To be completely honest, probably not, in my mind. Golf has only been in for a few attempts. And this course has been around for quite some time. So it's pretty hard to compare the two.