10 things we learned from Xander Schauffele’s epic press conference

Forget Xander Schauffele’s quiet, stoic reputation — he was honest, funny and insightful in a 30-plus minute press conference at the BMW.

The post 10 things we learned from Xander Schauffele’s epic press conference appeared first on Golf.

Forget Xander Schauffele’s quiet, stoic reputation — he was honest, funny and insightful in a 30-plus minute press conference at the BMW.

The post 10 things we learned from Xander Schauffele’s epic press conference appeared first on Golf.

Xander Schauffele checked his phone as he sat down to Tuesday’s media availability ahead of the BMW Championship.

“What, am I early?” he asked. “I usually wait for most of you guys to clear out.”

It was a fitting line from Schauffele. The assembled group of reporters laughed; the World No. 2 is low-key funny. But he was also telling the truth; the World No. 2 tends not to lie, even when he is poking fun. After all, he does tend to schedule his press conferences for 3 or 4 or 5 p.m., by which time other players have spoken and other news has broken and the occupants of media centers have grown otherwise occupied.

But perhaps he should show up early more often.

Schauffele held court for the next 30-plus minutes, discussing everything from his season vs. Scottie Scheffler’s to the annual salaries of NFL quarterbacks to dealing with anger on the golf course. Schauffele can still carry a reputation as stoic, staid, understated, despite his major-championship wins and the fact that he’s playing the second-best golf in the world. But with better tournament results come better questions, and with better questions come better answers. At the mic, Schauffele is hitting his stride: direct, honest, funny, insightful.

Here’s what he told us.

1. He’d take Scottie Scheffler’s season over his own.

Golf-media types have been debating Scheffler’s season vs. Schauffeles. And sure, it’s possible he’s just being humble, but here was Schauffele’s case:

“I’ve won two times and he’s won seven. We both have a lot of top 10s. That’s kind of how I’m drawing it up. I know that’s how you guys draw it up.”

Sure, Schauffele’s two majors trump Scheffler’s one. But Scheffler won the Players (over Schauffele, who faded on Sunday) and the Olympics (where Schauffele was the proud defending champion) and if those things net out about even, the extra Signature Event wins serve as something of a tiebreaker. Advantage Scottie.

“He’s been playing unbelievable golf. I feel like we’re all just chasing him. I’ve done probably the best job of getting the closest to him, but it’s still very far away,” he said.

2. There’s a reason he looks so stoic on the golf course.

What’s the last time Schauffele threw a club or got visibly frustrated during a tournament?

“I don’t know. That’s a good question. For you, at least,” Schauffele said, deadpan, eventually cracking a grin at Doug Ferguson, the beloved Associated Press reporter who’d posed the question. But then he offered an insightful answer.

“I get frustrated often,” he said. “I quickly try to correct myself, just knowing that it doesn’t do me well. I don’t operate well when I’m too angry or too happy. If I ever get too chatty on the golf course, I lose focus on what I’m trying to do, and if I get too angry, I lose focus on what I’m trying to do, as well. I try and stay in the middle lane of my mind.”

3. There’s some fascinating backstory there…

“First year on the Korn Ferry [Tour], I’d got through Q-school and I was fired up, and here I am, a kid fresh out of college and I’ve got my card already, that’s pretty special. Then I made 25 grand, I’m floating [caddie] Austin with me every week and paying him more than I’m making, we’re rooming together and I’m angry all the time.

“It was a lot of self-reflection, I guess, at that time to realize that I was really frustrated and I felt like I was playing decent golf, I was just missing cuts by one shot and I was just having these little mini-meltdowns all the time. Got my act together, fixed that and then got my [PGA Tour] card my rookie year.

“Same thing [a year later], I was about to lose my card and then I Mondayed into the U.S. Open and the rest is history. I was able to turn it around. Two years of beating myself up in hotel rooms and just realizing that I need to stop kind of acting like a child in my own way is how I came to that conclusion.”

4. He has a short memory — but still remembers his “worst loss.”

Schauffele was two putts from defending his Sentry title at Kapalua in 2020 but took three putts to get his ball in the hole instead. From there, he remembers never having a chance.

“I got in a playoff and then I was so rattled from three-putting, had an internal meltdown and chunked a chip off the fringe or something — I can’t remember. I’m pretty good at being a starfish when it comes to stuff; I forget. Three-second memory here and I forget about it.

“But I just remember three-putting there, was really excited, amped up, downwind putt, whacked it seven feet by, missed it, was in complete shock, then had to go into a playoff. Had no chance of winning that thing, obviously.”

Schauffele remembers the aftermath, too:

“I remember sitting in the hotel room looking at the floor and my wife Maya is asking me if I’m okay and I was like, ‘You’re going to have to give me at least 10 or 15 minutes.’”

There have been happier moments since.

5. He doesn’t think about money while he’s putting.

I’ve often wondered this while watching late on Sundays; when pros are in contention but have no chance to win, are they doing mental math about how much each stroke is worth? Not in real time, Schauffele said.

“I honestly don’t think there’s any pro out here that’s sitting there, like, oh, if I make this putt I’m going to make 50 more grand or 80 more grand. Someone might say it to them after the fact, but when you’re in there, you’re trying to make an eight-footer that’s right edge. You’re sitting there like, all right, I’ve hit this putt a few times, let’s see if I can roll this thing in.

“Then you hit a bad putt and you want to go straight to the putting green and hit an eight-footer that’s right edge.”

6. He thinks golfers and money have gotten a bad rap.

“The media has been an interesting thing to me the last two or three years,” Schauffele said, asked about the increasingly hot topic of money in pro golf. “The news that I do read, it’s funny, it’s really negative. It’s painted really negatively in golf, which is fine. I think people like to hate on anything these days.

“But when I look at other sports, when someone gets a $300 million contract, there’s all these positive comments about how someone got their bag or they’ve worked so hard to get this and they deserve it, things like that. It’s interesting to me. I think maybe golf is a gentleman’s game and you’re not supposed to talk about money — but all the media wants to do is talk about money.”

Ironically, Schauffele added, the players that make the most money think about it the least.

“I mean, winning $25 million [the FedEx first-place prize] would be really cool and really nice, but I don’t think it’s going to change my life, and I can tell you if I lose and play bad I’m going to be pretty upset about playing bad and not being able to peak at the right time — more than losing money.”

7. Speaking of money (and Scheffler): he thinks Scottie deserves every penny.

Should golfers be paid like quarterbacks? If Scheffler wins the FedEx Cup he’ll be over $60 million in on-course earnings this year; the highest-paid NFL QBs make around $55 million annually. But as Schauffele pointed out, Scheffler’s season is a bit of a unicorn.

“Scottie has won seven times, I think that’s including Olympic gold — maybe eight, I don’t want to mess that up — and he’s made significantly more than everyone else,” he said. “If you look at how much the 10th-best player in the world has made, it’s not going to sniff how much Scottie has made. [He’s right: 10th on the Tour’s money list is Shane Lowry at $5.5 million]. That just shows you how well Scottie has played in these big tournaments.

“You look at the No. 1 quarterback, he’s getting $60 million and then the No. 10 quarterback is getting 52, and then No. 15 is getting 39 or 40,” he continued. “So it’s like, obviously there’s way more money in football with TV and everything that’s surrounding it. It’s hard to compare them one v. one because Scottie has just been that much more elite, and I think he deserves everything that he’s getting.”

8. He’d like U.S. captain’s picks to prioritize one thing.

Is it better to pick a veteran or a rookie for a U.S. team — say, for this fall’s Presidents Cup? If those are doors A and B, Schauffele is picking C…

“I don’t know … more than the veteran or the rookie, probably more the horse of the course, in all honesty,” he said. “I think your goal is to win the Cup at all costs. You’ve got to pick the right guy for the right course.”

…and D. “Obviously he has to get along with everyone,” he added.

He brushed aside the veteran-rookie dichotomy — “doesn’t really matter,” he said — but projected ahead to next month.

“Montreal, apparently it’s not some crazy big property, it’s more old-school with maybe modern greens is what I’ve heard. I’m thinking of some sort of narrow course that you’ve got to hit a lot of fairways, the rough is going to be up, got to be a decent putter, hitting shots into elevated greens — so maybe a bit of a higher-ball hitter.”

9. He’s still gunning for World No. 1.

Scheffler has been so dominant that the gap between World No. 1 (Scheffler, 18.37 points) and World No. 2 (Schauffele, 11.38 points) is larger than Schauffele’s lead on World No. 12 Tommy Fleetwood. But that hardly means Schauffele has given up on the pursuit.

“It’s a very big goal of mine, yes, and I’ve been told, yes, that Scottie is an outlier and several years, I would be [World No. 1]. But it’s not really good enough, is it? That doesn’t take away from what I’ve done or how I feel. I’m proud with the work that I’ve put in and with the people that are around me and that have helped me. It’s just a result. I keep saying it, but it really is. I’m just going to keep knocking. That’s what I do.”

That’s what he does.

10. Golf was love at first sight.

Schauffele was asked whether he’d rather be an NFL QB and brushed that off, declaring that he’s “very happy” looking in the mirror most days. He talked about his youth soccer days, too, and wanting to have more control over the result of a team sport.

“Then I saw my dad playing golf, and we talked about how it’s an individual sport, and as soon as I started hitting golf balls on the range and seeing a golf ball fly, it was kind of love at first sight,” he said. “For me, I’ve always loved just playing golf. I’ve always loved hitting golf balls.”

He’s gotten pretty good at it in the years since. He may not love the game in the exact same way — “sitting on the range as a 12-year-old, 13-year-old hitting 600 to 1000 balls, I don’t do that anymore,” he said — but he’s learned to relish the process instead.

“I just really enjoy that challenge,” he said. “It’s an ongoing battle. It’s a really hard one to win. New opportunities always seem to present themselves. That’s the part of golf I love the most.”

The post 10 things we learned from Xander Schauffele’s epic press conference appeared first on Golf.