BMW CHAMPIONSHIP

August 18, 2022

Xander Schauffele

Wilmington Country Club

Quick Quotes

Q. How would you characterize the round today?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, better. I hit some shots that were a little more refreshing. They were on the lines I intended. A couple loose ones, but for the most part I'd say it was a pretty solid round, especially after the way I played last week.

Q. How did you find the course playing today?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: To be expected. I thought the greens were a little bit softer than -- Pat kind of ripped a wedge back on the first hole, which was a little surprising, just because it felt like the greens were almost firmer yesterday. I'm sure that's going to change Friday to Saturday to Sunday. It'll start picking up. The fairways are running. The rough is up.

Yeah, it's just sort of a plotting-style golf course. If you're not in the fairway off the tee you're playing defense, and carry on from there.

Q. I know that you travel all over the world and you play everywhere, but when you come to a playoff event that's never hosted like a TOUR event before, is there any kind of an adjustment period for a guy like yourself?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: A little bit. I'd say it's -- you need to be in the fairway, but you're not trying to just hit the fairway, if that makes sense. You're trying to hit it as far as you can in the fairway. If you're laying back with a hybrid or 3-wood on some tees, you're just screwing yourself on the hole and you're not going to give yourself a birdie look.

There's some adjustments but none too different than anyone else I'd say.

Q. On No. 12, what club was that to lay up with?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: A 6-iron.

Q. Can you talk about the nice break you got on the other par-5, 15?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, I hooked that tee ball -- 14. We'll cut you some slack here like we always do.

I hit a tee ball left, hit the tree, came down close to the fairway or mowed tee box, and the TrackMan was in my way. So I got to move it sort of seven feet away from that. My lie was okay. I probably could have hit it over the camera guy and the TrackMan, but TIL was the relief, so I took it on to the tee box. It was still kind of a sketchy 3-wood with the camera guy sitting there kind of at eye height off a downsloped tee box, but caught that 3-wood nice and clean from about 300 yards.

Q. It was a beautiful shot, wasn't it.

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, it was one of the nicer swings I made for the day.

Q. Lastly, on another hole that I have no idea what the number is apparently, you're just off the green by about this much. This is very nerdy. I'm just curious how simple a shot that looks and how hard it is. It's a speed thing, isn't it?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, it's a speed thing. It's very sticky, and I really gauged the lay of the grass -- it was more neutral and I thought it was more into me. It's a style of shot I was trying to hit that if it was lying into me, it would sort of roll up the face. You catch it low, it rolls up, and then it kind of dumps onto the green and sort of trundles towards the hole. I caught it center face, came out very hot, went six feet past and probably made a very amateur bogey there, for being out here. It wasn't very hard. It was like a 10 out of 10 until I hit it today.

Q. You're always kind of self-deprecating about your form a little bit --

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I wouldn't say that. Maybe if I finish 58th I'm going to call it what it is. It's not good golf.

Q. How do you guard against being too hard on yourself when you're kind of judging based on the play that you had a month ago?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, you chase -- everyone out here is chasing perfection. While doing that, you will make advancements in your game or you won't. But the only way to get better is to do that and obviously try not to drive your head through the wall too much by chasing it. So it's kind of a fine line that we like to ride out here.