Xander Schauffele joins Garrett Johnston to discuss what makes links golf such a good challenge, memories from The Open & more.
all right gett Johnson here with Xander chafl and Xander when I think about like some of your strengths obviously playing well in Majors is definitely one of them there’s particular one where you were in the final group remember at the Open Championship you finished second there at burkdale 2018 what what did you kind of learn about that experience um I think it was Carusi oh you know what right was the year before was your first yeah berkdale was my first one uh Cari yeah it was it was brutal Jordan and I were were paired in that final group and I remember it very clear um we had got up to a really really bad you know it’s bad when you’re competing in a final group with someone obviously friendly with Jordan but we have a look at each other after nine holes were like we can do better than this so um not acceptable right it was it was tough you know the conditions were really hard the course you know carnasty was was playing nasty and it got the best of us on Sunday unfortunately but I kind of clawed my way back into the round a little bit um was sort of back in touch after a really rough opening nine holes and then uh had that costly bogey on 17 and wasn’t able to convert I had a really good iron shot in the 16 actually and then um yeah the rest is history but was was definitely you know really cool to be in the thick of things uh it just feels different being in the thick of things at an Open Championship versus the other Majors now how so why does it yeah lyns golf is pretty cool there’s always one side you can really miss miss it Miss it on so you know austa or certain major championships it’s it’s a different feel um you can play into some trouble uh pretty easily on certain holes um you know like a in corner 12 12 for example there isn’t much you can do on 12 if the wind picks up and swirls you know I’ve seen best players in the world you know hit hit both hit nine irons and one comes up you know 10 15 yards short in the water and one goes over the green and you’re just kind of sitting there looking at each other like I don’t know what the heck just happened um when you’re playing overseas it’s blown 25 miles an hour and it’s One Direction it’s not swirling at all it may change directions but it’s so strong it’s it’s One Direction and um there’s always a side of Fescue uh that you can kind of hit towards and maybe that’s a little bit comforting at times doesn’t sound very inviting to me man I know pter Harrington talks about sometimes you got to go through it a trouble and believe it’s going to come back with the wind I guess right out there for sure um there’s times where you aim at bunkers that are absolutely crossed out in your yardage book and you just like you said you literally have to hit it you know it’s blowing so strong that you know if you hit a draw with a right to left wind it’ll just go across bounce and go straight into the left rough and so you almost have to like hit it at the bunkers try to hit a little fade just so it doesn’t hook that much uh it’s a pretty wild feeling sounds stressful man it can be um or you can have fun with it either way speaking of having fun with it Links Golf in general the creativity the challenge of it what do you make of that how do you embrace it yeah just everything you you pretty much said I mean it’s there is a challenge you are able to be a little bit more creative uh if you’re not comfortable a certain part of your game you can kind of play to other strengths whether it’s I remember in the practice R I putted uh before it started raining a carus I hit a putt from like 100 yards to like six feet on the ninth hole of Carusi that’s how fast it was playing I wouldn’t do that in a tournament but you can always sort of bump shots or putt from 20 yards off the green if you’re not super comfortable with with sort of chipping so there’s certain ways to get creative um that that links links allows for right and I jumped the gun on Ro burkdale apologies that was your first open in 2017 I think you went to Wimbledon you did a bunch of things before that or you had a lot ofed cultural experiences at least yeah I was able to um to hang out with my family um I’m overseas just prior I was actually in Germany um visiting Germany for the first time we in Munich and uh where my dad grew up in in St guard so it was a really cool experience for me to to be over there prior to the tournament right and then just um kind of wrapping up I I think about you and your your partner crime Austin Kaiser cadd on the back um you’ve mentioned recently that you guys made a lot of mistakes your rookie year you guys were kind of like in those Pro ranks together what give us a couple stories a couple fun examples of that yeah I mean the mistakes were we honestly made just from a a nerve standpoint you know I think it’s easy to get stuff wrong when you’re sort of kind of nervous about the moment uh whether it’s getting the wind wrong or kind of being anxious and not just taking a step back and just taking it for what it is um but there’s been times where we got wind went like wind completely wrong uh on a hole where you know we’re sitting there kind of arguing about it and that’ll still happen now but as rookies it’s like you make it a really big deal um he’s never gotten a yardage wrong um I’ve gotten yard just wrong plenty of times uh but he likes to get yappy sometimes though he can yeah he he he can have a mouth which which I prefer I actually tell him to speak up whenever he feels like I should be doing something different but as rookies we shortsighted ourselves a lot on holes where you just you know if you look at our yard books now or his yards looks now versus then you he’s putting a big X in certain spots just cuz we know this is you know Bay Hill here on a few holes if you’re above the hole you’d rather be in the Fairway you know 30 yards short of the pin than being a foot in the rough over the green just because of how hard and fast it can play so uh some some small some small notes like that can can really be gamechanging for for your score yeah well you talk about course management I mean US Open you’ve got a really Stellar US Open record I mean you’ve got to be happy with your course management so far in that career for sure yeah I mean I think it’s pretty obvious at us opens um week to week it’s not as obvious uh um I think you know Memphis is a really good example that comes to mind where actually short sighting yourself is is the Miss A lot of times playing to the fat side actually gives you like an up and over to a lot of pins versus if you actually shorts side yourself on a lot of holes you’re actually just chipping straight up to the hole it doesn’t look correct but it is kind of correct on property I think that’s what makes Memphis very difficult when it’s playing hard um but yeah us opens are pretty obvious it’s sort of like you have to hit the Fairway it’s a bit of an execution contest if you’re in the rough put it back in position and try and hit a really good wedge yeah um and then just lastly in in terms of your major career what do you feel like you um can really hang your hat on or what have you learned about your your skills in Majors that’s that’s really come across cross so well so far yeah just having a a well-rounded game I mean this is my eth year on tour and um you know I look at my body of work as just me gathering enough an experience and and becoming more more and more comfortable um to towards getting the job done appreciate it Xander well good luck the rest of the year at the majors in particular
