Xander Schauffele lies two off the lead going into the weekend of the WM Phoenix Open, and in with a strong chance to land his next PGA Tour win. Excerpts from a chat.
Awesome 65 out there today. Can you just give us some thoughts on your round and being two shots back going into the weekend?
Xander Schauffele: Yeah, relatively stress free, which is always nice around the property, there’s a lot going on. So overall pretty pleased with how everything went.
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What is it about this place that you just feel so comfortable and shoot some low scores at?
Xander: Typically the pureness of the greens, but the putter’s kind of holding me back right now, which is kind of unfortunate, so I guess I can take that as a positive and it means I’m playing good golf overall.
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Is this still like a sore subject losing this one last year, does it still bother you?
Xander: No. I don’t lose any sleep about my losses at this point in my career. I just look forward to the next win and getting that done.
Do you count winning the Olympics as like a victory or do you feel like you still haven’t won one since the Tournament of Champions as a win?
Xander: I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten more recognition or attention for the Olympics and the gold medal than more than I’ve ever imagined. I think the longer that marinates, the better it gets for me. At first I didn’t just because it was just new and people were telling me no. And then I kind of sat down and looked at it and I was like, Hmm, screw everybody else, like I think this is a win. So if you want to talk about PGA Tour official wins, then, yes, I’m lagging on that end, so we’ll pick up the slack.
You mentioned wanting to get the putter going on the weekend. How big is it when it’s not going for you to card a bogey-free round like this?
Xander: Yeah, it’s nice, it means you’re doing a lot of things well. It can’t, I mean, for me, it feels like I’ve been putting pretty bad, so whether it’s just not seeing it or the greens being a little bit faster I think and maybe my putting off certain memory is kind of faulting me. But we’ll have to clean it up if I want to win this thing.
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We’ve heard guys talk about regulating you’re emotions, how important that is. Is it harder for you to bring yourself back down when you’re on that high or is it harder to get yourself back to middle ground when you’re struggling?
Xander: I try pretty hard to stay pretty level throughout the round. So there’s a few holes that will get you going where everyone — I mean, it’s just that people are yelling around you, it’s just a lot of noise. If you sit in a car and you’re really calm and someone turns the volume up to 50 I think you’ll jump a little. But fortunately we know what to expect moving around the golf course, so I’m sure most of the guys don’t really mind.
