Xander Schauffele spoke to the media ahead of the Wells Fargo Championship, where he was asked about his incredible consistency and how he has worked to increase his swing speed.
a little bit of everything I’d say I haven’t really been able to get everything together at once which is sort of the story for every tour pro so still working on that bit yeah I mean for for Shane it’s they won so um when you’re you know when you win it definitely you you have a sense of playing Freer you know I’ve been on both sides of it where I I won late in the year and I won early in the year and you definitely sort of cruise the tournaments with a different mindset for you know obvious reasons after you win early in the year so I’m sure Shane has that feeling right now um I haven’t won so you know I don’t really have that current feeling uh but uh yeah it’s fun to play in the middle of the year it’s fun to shake things up uh playing with Pat definitely you know I’m not scared to hit sort of a loose errand shot I know he’s going to chip it up there to a tap end so um there’s certain certain shots that you know with certain weird winds on property that you may you may attack a little bit differently versus if you’re just doing a normal stroke play tournament you know a lot of the holes feel like execution um it’s a big it’s a big boy Golf Course Championship style uh I’ve played it sort of overseed and uh with Bermuda it plays very different both times um this week with the rain the fairies seem to be a lot softer than they normally are usually your ball’s sort of bounding out of the Fairway into bunkers and into that Ry rough and you can kind of have to gauge it going into the greens when that are typically firm so uh I think it’s just a fun course to play and you have to execute shots kind of throughout the throughout the entirety of the tournament it’s can’t really pin pin in on one thing you know I started working with a new trainer um he’s definitely helped me feel uh a lot stronger just my Baseline strength is probably better um and then working with Chris as well moving the club a little bit differently uh that that’s been very helpful so I think a combination of the two I I don’t know how to weigh the situation between them what what’s more or less but um those two things have definitely help me pick up some speed if you just kind of look look up I mean Scotty is an outlier in many ways currently um he’s actually dropped speed which is just mind-blowing I mean no one hit hits their irons or or gets up gets up and down around the greens better than him so his iron play is Elite so he can afford to sort of drop some distance off the te I mean I think he’s hitting more Fairways I haven’t really done it too deep of a dive I just saw that his average ball speed was was down than you know I played with him a couple years ago and he was sending it past me so at that time I felt like I needed to to pick up some pace and now that he’s dropped back you know he’s just doing doing Scotty things so but in general if you look at the sort of top 10 15 20 players in the world there’s sort of a threshold that you need to hit um if you’re not sort of a crazy Elite iron player or a crazy Scrambler things of that nature so I figured any Edge I can get on the field um if it’s you know flying the ball 15 yards further and and being able to take out a bunker on the whole that other guys can’t that’ll help me over the the span of a a season yeah I’m lucky I was uh Austin my caddy he he went uh he flew in from uh I was in Florida just practicing if I didn’t play New Orleans I was probably going to sneak over over to Pinehurst um but just being on one week of rest uh I ended up not going over uh to pineh horse or or Valhalla actually so Austin went over to Pinehurst checked it out he said it was very soft they you know just like here they got a ton of rain um so you know it’s just so hard to tell when you go early in advance tournaments how a course is going to play even if you take you know Augusta for example you know the one time I went on a scouting trip there it was 42 degrees and hailing and I still played 18 holes because it was a dream of mine so um I’ve never played it austa I mean this was this year was the hardest but I’ve never any other day I’ve ever played it it was never hailing so it’s kind of hard to to to decide how to go about it Sandra are you aware of um the the cut streak you’ve got going right now and and if so have you given it much thought you trying to hit me with a commentator’s curse here or something no no well you can’t you you can’t miss it this week so I figure I can bring it up that’s right yeah it’s okay it’s okay time don’t bring it up any other week right right it’s fair it’s fair this week I mean yes and no I you know it gets brought up I think Austin’s actually the one who brought it up to me a couple weeks ago maybe um but you know it it is what it is I think you know I don’t know who’s who else is playing a lot of events that you know and making the cut I think it’s a it’s definitely a testament to consistency uh all of us out here want to win tournaments and um I guess that’s a different question but uh yeah I’m kind of I mean I’m aware of it now that you mentioned it are have does it give you any um I don’t know sense of perspective as to the fact you know what tiger did all those years ago making all those cuts you you’re I think you’re like 90 something behind them yeah yeah it would mean I have to play another like three and a half years to uh to to get close to his number yeah it’s ridiculous um that’s why uh he’s he’s you know that’s way he’s the goat that’s he he did stuff like that and he has records like that that’ll never be broken but
