SENTRY TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS

January 6, 2023

Xander Schauffele

Plantation Course at Kapalua

Quick Quotes

Q. Anything you can shed light on?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, just not -- really heavy West Coast Swing and in Bahamas, like it feels like a very similar deal to the Bahamas. In the Bahamas I started to feel better each day with the pills and the treatment and everything. I picked up swing speed like noticeably throughout the course of -- so I'm relating it to that. That's really all I know. I've never had any sort of issues. It's just not getting better. It actually feels worse when I swing.

When I'm done with treatment and like a full night of sleep, treatment, full night of sleep, treatment, I actually feel pretty good, and I have more range. And my range is better than it was on Monday when it happened. But I'm just kind of like, I feel like I'm pogoing back and forth with myself. Austin told me on 9, he's like, You know, we have a lot of tournaments coming up on the West Coast Swing, and it's a big swing for us. And he's like, You know, are you going to look back and feel like really proud of yourself for like gutting it out and maybe hurting yourself more or should we pull out and be smart here because we have, you know, a long way to go. So, yeah, it kind of went like that.

Q. Are you comfortable that you'll be okay for AmEx?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I don't know. I'm going to go home -- I've never had a scan or anything, so I'm going to go home, get a scan, just try to be as smart as possible. That's who I was just talking to on the phone.

Q. The scan people?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, the doctor, trying to get an MRI done. I should have done it after Bahamas, but it was so funny, I felt so great after, I was back to full everything, routine after that. So that was probably a little immature on my part, to be completely honest.

But yeah, I'm 29. I need to preserve my health. I feel like I've done a really good job up until this point and the fact that I can't really pinpoint what it is is a bit frustrating. So once I get the scan and look at it and have all the pros look at it and then if they tell me that I'm okay, then I think I'll start to feel better and stop flinching at what I'm doing.

Q. Was there ever an incident, whether pre-Bahamas or anything --

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: No. No. I've never hurt myself while swinging. I've never hurt myself while exercising or working out.

Q. When did you notice it at Bahamas?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, in between, I was literally, I had like a minute and a half rest in between working out and I, literally like while walking around talking to someone. It's not something that like jolts through. It just like really stiffens up like a rope and then it's obviously the facet is protecting itself, the facet joint or whatever you call it. I don't really really speak to it.

Yeah, it's just something that's, I don't know, I don't know if I'm making my self worse or not. And I just can't -- I was telling him, like I'm all for trying to game it and make it happen, but I'm like flinching at drives and chunking irons and just my head is in a terrible spot.

Q. (No microphone.)

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: A little bit. And then it's like, you know, if I can stop swinging and literally go float somewhere by myself and not move that would probably be better than swinging a golf club as hard as I possibly can right now.

Q. Where are you going to go float?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Somewhere where you won't find me.

Q. Frustrating for it to happen here at Sentry.

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, yeah, it is, it's really frustrating. It's a place that I've played really well at. I just love being out here and, yeah, it sucks.

Q. If you had to give a number on pain between 1 and 10 what would you say?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: My wife would probably say she has a higher pain tolerance than me. But, I don't know, nothing like out -- it was bad on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. It was much higher.

Right now it's more of like I get to a certain range and the pain, like, it will like rise or increase in that range. And then if I take a really -- if I have like a 70-foot putt like a big stroke, I'll start to feel it like a little bit. Versus like a five-foot putt.

So it's like one of those things, where it's like, you know, the worse golf I play the more it hurts almost. Versus if I can kind of like chip it around the property, keep it in play, not have to swing hard at it.

But, yeah, it's manageable. If someone told me they were going to shoot me if I didn't finish this tournament, I would finish this tournament. But I really am worried about, it happened in Bahamas, same thing is happening a month later, I don't know what the hell it is and I haven't gotten a scan yet and everyone's telling me, like, you need to chill out.

So I wanted to be stupid and kind of chug forward, but I got six people telling me to pack the hell up, so...

Q. Did you have this issue between the Bahamas and here?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: No. No.

Q. So just when you started --

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, yeah, it's wild. It's pretty wild, so. I do need to figure out what it is, obviously, with hopefully a long career.

Q. Did you play much?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah.

Q. From Bahamas to --

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, yeah. Train. Routine. Yeah. Just healthier. The irony hurts. I try to exercise more, eat better and do everything better and I should have just stayed fat and like more mobile, I guess, and not worked out and try to do all these good things and I would have been like a golfer from, you know, the early '90s.