THE 152ND OPEN

July 18, 2024

Xander Schauffele

Mixed Zone

Q. Did you find the course confusing at all today? A lot of guys seemed kind of puzzled by everything, obviously the wind in a trickier direction than what you prepped with.

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, it was hitting driver on 1 in the practise round wasn't really great prep for today, but that's just kind of how links golf is, and that's the beauty of it.

Different -- you know, 3-iron, 6-iron, come up short of the pin was a little bit different today, and I think that's probably what everyone was alluding to.

Q. There seems to be a certain style of player that's successful in these kind of conditions. Do you feel like you embrace it when it gets a little funky out?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I try to. Yeah, it's a funny one when it gets -- you start off with five or six holes into the wind. I was lucky to be under-par there. If you're over-par early, it's just being patient and feeling the need to chase, especially on a Thursday, is a difficult thing.

Austin and I, we came up with a good plan. It's cliche, but really just kind of plotted around the property.

Q. Did you watch any of the covers in the morning?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, just trying to get your bearings. It's all the info I can get is watching other people hit certain shots, and that's about it.

Q. Did you notice a jump in the greens' firmness? I guess they sent out an alert.

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I don't think I saw it, but whenever a little bit of moisture gets on them, they sort of have that little skid to them, especially when you start chipping. What would have been an easy chip kind of becomes a little harder. What was an easy sort of 80-yard shot becomes kind of tricky with that first bounce being really skiddy. Noticed it earlier on for sure.

Q. This might be a very amateur observation, but Tiger's swing looks more like Charlie's now, more sort of free flowing, and I wonder if you observed any of that.

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: He hit it pretty solid for the most part. He had a couple bad breaks and hit it in a couple bad spots. Yeah, I don't really -- I've seen Charlie hit balls a few times, but I'm not really sure on how Charlie's a young whippersnapper, as they say, and Tiger is obviously the opposite of that.

Just happy he's playing golf.

Q. Are you sorry to see or tough to see him struggle? This is kind of a couple majors in a row now where he's kind of out of it. It's really hard to make the cut.

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I mean, he's only playing major championships. He's making it as hard on himself as possible, and I know he's hard on himself too. It's just hard. I think he's just learning. He's got to learn a little bit more about his body, what he can and can't do.

I'm sure he'd like to prep more at home if his body would allow it. This is all stuff -- I'm not sure he tells you guys this stuff or not. But as a tour pro now, I kind of know what goes into it and what needs to be done to play at a high level. If your body is not letting you do it, it's just frustrating. I'm sure he's trying to figure that out.

Q. When the wind is blowing in a way it hasn't before, how do you feel the shot, visualise the shot when you're standing over it? I'm curious about that process.

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Luckily the range was similar to the 1st tee, so try to kind of visualise some shots on the range. You put your machine down, and you kind of see, okay, this is hurting, a high ball 40 yards, and then you kind of move through the bag, and you try to find the centre of the face and see how much the ball is moving. You try to hit it straight, draw it, cut it, all those things.

Lucky, if the range was left to right for some reason, it would have been really hard for me to get to that 1st tee feeling super comfortable. Fortunately I was able to get comfortable early on.

Q. Is it a little melding of art and science in the sense of you see it on the machine but then you get out there?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: A little bit. It just depends what kind of player you are.

Q. Does it feel a little bit different playing with Tiger now, a major champion with another major champion, than it did before?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: He said congrats to me. He asked me how it felt on the putting green, then I asked him how it felt to have a hundred of them (laughter). We had a nice chuckle before the round.

It puts it into perspective when you look at someone that done what he's done, only having one.

Q. What was the difference in clubs, on the 1st hole, for example, compared to the practise round?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Driver, 3-iron, 6-iron. So driver on the green almost, or on the green if you miss the bunkers. Then 3-iron, 6-iron, short of pin high. So maybe 3-iron, 5-iron.

Q. Anything else that dramatic?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, I hit driver, like 5-iron and 8-iron to the par-5s. It was like driver, 3-wood, lob wedge or sand wedge, or gap wedge. Gap wedge, and I should have hit a sand wedge on the other one. It was pretty different.

Q. Does it change the Postage Stamp?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Fortunately, it wasn't pumping dead in. I think a dead-in wind there is so brutal. It was awkward because the stands hid the wind, but the flag was just whipping to the right of us. Luckily that was there. I played five yards of hurt on that. I just tried to get it moving on the wind.

Q. I know you and Pat are real tight, but was there any needling between the two of you? Do you bring up the fact that you now have a major and he doesn't?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: No.

Q. Why not?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: No. Pat is one of my good friends. I'm pulling for him to win one, and we'll just keep stacking one right after the other. That's sort of what we try to do.