Xander Schauffele takes on The Shane Lowry Challenge!

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Xander Schauffele reflects upon his win last year at Royal Troon as he lifted the Claret Jug for the first time and takes on the takes on The Shane Lowry Challenge!

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Now, you have sadly just had to hand back the clar jug this morning. That’s correct. What are some of the emotions coming back on site at an open championship? Uh yeah, I mean, you know, with the venue changing, it feels uh a bit new, I guess. Um but yeah, bitter bittersweet to give it away. Uh definitely motivation to to try and hold it again for a year. Are some of the memories from last year flooding back to you? I know obviously it’s a different venue, but a lot of the buildout very similar and it’s the open championship. Yeah. Um RNA does a great job with the buildout. It literally feels the exact same just sort of twisted a different direction. So, a lot of a lot of similar feels, a lot of similar familiar faces. Um and yeah, just really I remember last time I was here, I enjoyed playing the course a lot. So, looking forward to sort of relearning it and uh preparing for the week. Uh well, in terms of some of those familiar feels and memories, we’re going to show you a few highlights from your final round last year at Royal Tron. Uh it was low round of the tournament. It was a 65 bogey free to get it just bump up the hill. Talk us through this. Yeah, this was a a bad spot and um you know when you’re trying to win a tournament, you have to sort of get away with certain things and one of those where you sort of get guess how it’s going to come out and it came out perfect. Uh at the turn, this was again another little save for you. Yeah, this was actually not not a terrible place to leave it. Nine’s a a really brutal brutal hole and um when you walk away with a four, you’re you’re you’re ecstatic. I mentioned it was a bogey 365. This on 11 kicked off a stretch of four birdies in six holes. Yeah, it just it feels, you know, looking back on it just feels like a little bit of luck, you know, to to hit a pitching wedge. Yeah. I mean, to hit a pitching wedge to three feet on 11, um you’re trying to walk out of there with four, maybe five and feel good about it. And then this was the moment down 18. What were some of the the emotions that you were feeling at this point? Just hit the green. Um, you know, there’s there’s some some deadly bunkers around this around this hole and my goal was just to hit the green. You know, luckily it was it was downwind and there’s no better hole to to have a two- shot lead on hitting iron off a tea. Uh, so an incredible walk down 18. Uh, really cool to share that with Austin and yeah, it’s uh it’s the best walk in golf. Now, this was your second major victory and second major in that calendar year. The first one being PGA at Valhalla. What did that first major give you that perhaps you utilized here in the final round? Just a lot of confidence, you know, I feel I I kept saying just just give me a chance, you know, just sort of this newfound belief um clipping the first one at Valhalla and um my goal was to just get myself in contention. So, Saturday was a really big day for for us and put myself in in a good spot and uh was able to to pull through on on this Sunday. Just in terms of that first major giving you a lot of confidence to do what you did here 12 months ago. Obviously as fans and in the media we talk about lot a lot about what the players do and you know what you’re winning or not winning and where your game is at. But for you personally how does that feel and how does that story or narrative feel to just get that weight off of your shoulders and to to move forwards? Yeah it was it was incredible. Um, you know, definitely some whispers I heard of of of being close often and not getting over the hump. So, just a big monkey off my back and um, you know, the the the hope is to, you know, it’ll free myself up moving forward in in future majors. Um, since then you had a little bit of an injury over the winter, but you’ve been building yourself back up. Last week, top 10 finish. Where’s the game at now? How’s it feeling? Yeah, I I’ve been trying hard to to get back, you know, um, pretty pretty humbling uh, experience there. Sort of my first injury. a lot of firsts uh you know first first couple majors and first injury um you know I was sort of felt like I was on on cloud nine for a little bit and then uh got struck off of it. So been trying to find my my way back up to to the top of the mountain. Yes. Uh well hopefully what we’re about to do with you will kickstart that climb up the mountain. You’re halfway there. We’re just going to help you to summit hopefully. Um we’ve got our Shane Lowry challenge that we’d love for you to take on. So, back in 2019, he’s walking up 18 with a two-shot victor, two shot lead. Um, and he had 175 yards into that final green. Okay, this is the shot here that we have recreated on our mat. Now, you’re used to a bit of simulator technology, um, having played in TGL, but with our platform golf mat, we’ve got it. It was a little bit below his feet, the ball, it was uphill to the pin. Okay, so we’ve got that here. All right. Uh, and we’ve also got our Causeway Giants Causeway Stones over there, which is where the pin was. All right. Um, so nearest is off the top of my memory, I think it’s 15 yards to beat. Okay. 15.1 yards. I’m hearing 45 ft. Um, yeah, like I said, winds down off the right. 175 nearest the pin. On the spot. Haven’t even swung a club today. Wish me luck. Um, but do you feel nah? I feel like you look like fairly flexible. You’d be fine. Yeah, right. You know, just talking about how I was just injured and here I am swinging ice cold. But you’re an athlete at the peak of his game. Yeah, we’ll just won’t even use a glove. All right. I mean, feel free to have a few stretches. Don’t let me No worries. I don’t want to keep everyone waiting here. Uh, so is this normalized? Uh, yes it is normalized. You know what? I’m gonna club up here, ladies and gentlemen. Okay. Play it safe. 175. What have you got? I have a seven iron now. Okay. Okay. I’m feeling this for you. Are you? Yeah. I’m not feeling very good about this to be completely honest. One of us is. 175. Oh, Xander. Catch a break. Okay. Got some odds to find out. Pretty good for me. 10.5 yards. You are the current leader. We’ve got our replay in coming here just so that you can embody this flight. Absolutely cold. First shot of the day. It was. Yeah. It I know. Looks like I’m done warming up. Exactly. You don’t need to hit the range now. It’s overrated. Here we go. Look at that. All right, that was good. Taking it. What is your uh current swing thought? That’s a dark hole you don’t want to crawl into there. Got a few going. Just one. Um the top one. Do you actually have a few on the go? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, come on. Give me the full what’s going Oh, it’s I’ve been working a lot with Chris Como and um my swing used to be sort of shut really shut and laid off and uh for you know a year or two I was pushing getting the club more online and this year when I came back from injury for some reason it was short and really across. So for the last you know month we’ve been trying to get it back to being more laid off which is a horrendous feeling. Is it? Yeah. So that looked all right. Well that was looking good. Yeah, that’s working well. Um, last year I seem to remember that you played a practice round, big money match with JT. Similar plans this year. Is that like a good luck thing that you’re going to keep going? Uh, we actually spoke about it. Uh, it’s been a while since um since we played played a match, but um yeah, I think I’m I’m going to go out this afternoon around 1, maybe play, you know, 18, hopefully hopefully nine and see how I feel. But uh yeah, um I need to warm up before I play any money matches. No, no, you don’t. Not from what we’ve seen. Xander, thank you so much for joining us and very best of luck this week. We’ll give you a final chance to say goodbye to the clar jug for now. Not touching it yet. No. Thank you so