MEN'S OLYMPIC GOLF COMPETITION

August 4, 2024

Xander Schauffele

Le Golf National

Quick Quotes

Q. Take us through your round?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I don't know which part you want to go through, but it wasn't very good. It was one of those situations where some old tendencies kind of crept in and I'm leaning on sort of how I've been playing the last couple months, which is sort of wherever I looked, the ball goes half the time.

Today was not that especially when I needed it the most. It was really unfortunate. The fans have been amazing all week and it would have been such a cool feeling to be in sort of medal contention coming down the stretch, and I was far from that.

Q. What happened on 12? Looked like the ball might have been plugged.

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, we looked at it. I had an official come over. Just a terrible tee shot. Got caught up in that sort of, I don't even know, like weed-looking thing, whatever that is. It's dense, kind of like fiberglassy. My arm was itching for a bit. Made a mess of that hole and tried to force a shot on 13, landing on the front of the green, and lashed a gab wedge and leaked it out to the right and the mess continued after that.

Q. What was the setting like, not just the crowd, but a lot of top players playing well. A lot of guys had a chance.

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: It was great. That's what Olympic golf needs for sure; it being so young. Back in the Olympics, I should say, after a century-ish. This is the kind of field and kind of show the tournament needs and for all the top players feel like they want to play it.

Q. It's just one round but is it surprising to you today? It's been such an incredible season with the two majors, you've right there, a little bit surprising?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: More disappointed. Not too surprised. You know, the course yielded two 62s, the last two rounds and if you go through their round, it would probably be surprising from my end just to be 15 shots behind those guys.

But it's a good course. It's a good tournament course. I was a great example of what it looks like if you try to press from being out of position and taking on some risks. You can make a mess of what is or what has looked like an easy course to some guys.

So for that, I mean, kudos to the course and whoever designed it and the Crew here because it's set up nice and fair and two 62s are incredible scores but sitting here 2-over looking like a 15-handicap.

Q. Not often you refer to your colleagues as teammates but Scottie is a teammate this week. To see him do what you did three years ago and make it two in a row for Team USA, it's special, right. There's probably a lot of people out there watching that don't watch golf week-to-week. Pretty special. Pretty cool.

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, cherry on top would not do it the justice, like I said earlier, Scottie is going to have about 14 cherries on top of his cake. He's been piling up trophies left and right and he keeps moving away from what is the pack of people chasing him in the world.

He's been playing unbelievable golf and very happy for him. When I take my competitive hat off and put my USA patriot hat on, I'm very happy that we won another Gold Medal.

Q. How do you balance this with the way you've been playing the last two months and then just a rough nine holes? Are you pissed? Or you're playing so well it's okay?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, it sucks. Not very happy with it to be honest. I'm trying to, not a whole lot of positives, obviously, from it. Just trying to address it as quickly as possible. I have three really big tournaments coming up and my head is already -- with five or six holes to play, I was already trying to figure out which direction I need to start moving the club to get back into a good place for the next three weeks.

Q. You said you went back to old tendencies. Are you talking about some of the swing changes that are new?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, they are set when they are set. Maybe I wasn't forcing enough -- not forcing but pressing on it enough or didn't practise enough getting the tendency down for it to sort of revert back. I need to see some film and I'm sure I'll have a phone call with Chris here shortly.

Q. I'm sure you were asked this three years ago but how does it feel chasing Gold, Silver, Bronze versus a tournament?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: There's pressure to win, and when you do what I did and shoot yourself in the leg a couple times, you end up trying to chase. Quickly I was leading and then quickly I was chasing. Yeah, I was shoot to go try and finish third or second. I wasn't going to lay down and then roll over. I was going to try to be as aggressive as possible. I think I showed that with my club selection and my target line. Just was off. It's hard to be off by, you know, when the pins are about 12 feet from the water, you just can't be off.

Q. I guess what I'm trying to ask is how is the energy or tension different in the Olympics?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: It is cool. Looking at Tom trying to make that -- get up-and-down on the last, you can tell it meant a lot. As soon as he missed that putt, he was gutted on 17, but you could tell there was so much to play for still. He probably had two chances to try and finish silver if he would have tied Hideki, I believe it's a playoff of some sort.

It's a really cool thing. It's something we rarely experience.

Q. Rory said you were scrambling and grinding and everything else out there. What was it like to be in the mix of all that of Jon and --

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I had about 2 1/2 hours of really good fun and about 2 1/2 hours of, what the hell am I doing out here. I enjoyed by two hours and 15 minutes when I was in the mix. Then really, yeah, going to have to address what went wrong on the back nine.

Q. I realise it's maybe too early to talk about, but L.A., '28, Riviera Country Club.

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Definitely too early to talk about that.

Q. Not just for you. Olympic golf growing and gaining energy. It's cool?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Scottie winning, what seems like the norm these days. But if you look at the top three with Scottie, Tom and Hideki and then Perez pushing hard for a medal, which I assume was a lot of the roars coming in, and Jon was up there. You look at the rest of the board, Højgaard, there's a lot of really big names at the top of that leaderboard.

It's good quality golf and it's exactly what it should be in the Olympics.

Q. Rory said that --

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Rory up there.

Q. Rory said golf, we're in a sh-t show right now but he said it's crazy how the two best events, including the Olympics now and the Ryder Cups, you don't get any money. Do you agree with that?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: He kind of bounces around with his opinion, you know. He said that he -- he's reverted on that topic. But yeah, I mean, there's something to be said about it. There's a lot of heart and patriotism. You're proud of what you're doing and the colors you're wearing. That's probably what he's reverting to.

It is a different feeling, and this year was incredible. You know, if you were in Tokyo, it's cool, and this year is very different with the fans and the people and being able to see other games. It was much closer to what is a real Olympics experience.