There hasn’t been much time for Xander Schauffele to savor his achievements this year.
“I’m too busy thinking about how I just finished my last event there in Paris,” he said Tuesday.
The world No. 2 was referring to his disappointing final round of the Olympic Games, where he squandered a chance to defend his gold medal with a 73 to drop all the way into a share of ninth place. It was an eyebrow-raising result for a player who was clearly in the best form of his career, who had already won two major championships and was looking to make an even stronger case for Player of the Year honors.
“I was pretty bummed out,” he said.
Schauffele was already thinking ahead to a phone conversation with swing coach Chris Como, knowing that a few old habits had crept in on the back nine. But that afternoon, as he watched Scottie Scheffler wipe away tears from high atop the podium, Schauffele felt an unusual feeling wash over him.
“I was butt-hurt about my own round,” Schauffele said, “and then I was sitting there, like, Yeah, this is pretty cool. I can be rational most times, but I felt so emotional in that state to where I was butt-hurt about how I played and then sorta proud and happy that Scottie won it. It’s hard to explain, the swing of it. Then we’re out here this week playing with him these next two days, and we’re all just trying to beat our heads in. It’s a funny feeling.”
Indeed, Schauffele will get another up-close look at his stiffest competition when he’s paired with Scheffler, the No. 1 seed, for the first two rounds of the FedEx St. Jude Championship, which begins Thursday in Memphis.
Schauffele is still looking for his first season-long title, though he boasts an outstanding record at East Lake, site of the Tour Championship, where he has never finished worse than seventh and owns a 66.96 scoring average. But that classic venue has been redone over the past year by Andrew Green, so Schauffele is expecting to learn a basically new course when he shows up in Atlanta.
First things first, though: The playoff opener is at TPC Southwind, which, like Le Golf National, is a challenging course with ample trouble. He has just a single top-10 in six tries in Memphis. And then next week’s BMW Championship will be played in Colorado, at nearly 7,000 feet above sea level. Then it’s back east to Atlanta, where it’s always hot and muggy.
Schauffele recalls playing a few rounds at East Lake with Rory McIlroy, watching in awe as McIlroy sauntered his way to three FedExCup titles in steamy conditions while Schauffele felt like he was “overheated at times.”
“That really pissed me off,” he said.
So Schauffele vowed to improve his cardiovascular fitness, and he hopes that the extra work in the gym pays off during this postseason run.
“My team is talking to me about managing things correctly, being smart about it,” he said. “I’m sitting there thinking, If you’re trying to win this thing, trying to be the best player over the course of the year, you’re going to just have to do better and be better than everyone else.
“When push comes to shove, you’re going to have to be a dog at some point.”