Xander Schauffele sits atop the Baycurrent Classic leaderboard after battling wild weather in Japan. The Olympic gold medalist reflects on “survival mode” rounds, his growing confidence, and what it would mean to win on Japanese soil with his 91-year-old grandfather and 81-year-old grandmother watching. A heartfelt moment from one of golf’s most composed stars.
And I think this is maybe the first time that you’ve gone into the final day of the competition in Japan with a you know in contention. How does it feel to be to be at the top of the leaderboard? Yeah, this is the first time I’ve been in contention all year I believe. So it’s uh it’s nice been been playing pretty good golf. The weather’s been tricky. Um so proud proud of the fight to stay in it today. How did you deal with the conditions today? Because you know the first day was windy. yesterday was sunny and dry today and raining all day. Yeah, I mean, same as everyone else. Just, you know, it feels like you’re round one felt like survival. Uh, round two felt like the course was pretty getable and and today felt like a bit of survival. Um, you know, with pockets of a little bit less rain. Uh, so just uh lean lean on your caddy pretty hard. Um, I’m sure Austin wished he had another arm. And finally, I know you’ve talked about this quite a lot of times before, but given your Japanese What would it mean to you if you were to win tomorrow? Yeah, it’d be uh it’d be special obviously u my grandparents here, my mom growing up here um with her brother as well. So, uh that’s far away from now. Um but yeah, to to think into the future, it it would be incredible feeling. Any other questions? Yeah. Yeah. It’s growing. You know, it’s uh it’s a tricky thing. Uh it takes a while to grow and and and it it goes away quickly. So, I’m just trying to, you know, put put one block after the other and slowly grow that confidence like I said before. And uh so far, we’ve been doing it. Have you had a chance to see? Yeah, they picked me up from the airport when I got to Han. Yeah, I mean there, you know, my my grandpa’s 901. Uh he was here. Um gave him a big hug on Friday. Uh my grandma’s 80 81 I think. So um you know they’re you know the Japanese culture is they’re very mobile for being old. Um so I’m sure they’ll walk. I think my grandma walked all 18 holes. Uh no problem. Thanks.
