AUGUSTA — Xander Schauffele is the last player to win a major championship, but a good bit of time has passed since he hoisted the Claret Jug on a gloomy July day in Scotland.
Enough time for one of the game’s elite players to experience periods of doubt, mostly due to injury. And too much time spent thinking about it.
Schauffele is competing in the Masters this week, but perhaps without the burst of confidence you might expect from someone who won two major championships last year and has contended at Augusta National in the past.
The rib injury that sidelined him for the better part of six weeks earlier this year—from just after the season-opening Sentry to the Arnold Palmer Invitational last month—meant a lack of preparation as well as some poor golf in the lead up to the year’s first major.
Notably, it was the first time in his career that Schauffele, 31, has dealt with an injury.
“I felt dumb at one point, sort of being the brunt of it’s my fault,” he said Monday at Augusta National, where rain wiped out most of the day’s practice. “[I] felt a little unprofessional, felt irresponsible and I felt sad. Then I was motivated, then I felt sad again. Then motivated finally.
“I don’t know if there’s, like, a grieving process, but I kind of dealt with it on my own. Like I said, I knew I was going to come back and play, I just didn’t know when. When it comes to feel, I feel like I’m a kid. I just want to go out and play golf and compete at a high level, and that was stripped away from me. Luckily I have a very supportive wife and family to keep me entertained during the downtime.”
Schauffele got in nine holes of practice at Augusta National on Sunday but, like everyone else in the field, was reduced to mostly sitting around on Monday.
Overnight rain was not heavy and allowed for the course to open to spectators at 8 a.m., only to be closed before noon and not re-opened. The practice facilities and course were closed.
All of that gave Schauffele a little more time to contemplate what he’s achieved and what awaits.
“Maybe I was more emotionally unstable than I thought I was through certain weeks,” he said. “Everything is gravy when it’s gravy. It was a nice wake-up call to maybe be a little more responsible when need be.
“It was a reminder of how much I love to play and compete. I think guys talk about, oh, ‘I’ve been on Tour for 20 years, things go by so fast.’ For me, it’s been eight or nine years. But it’s gone by very fast. To be able to take a step back after winning two majors and sort of accomplishing a lot, to still feel some fire burning watching other guys playing really well is a huge thing because at some point in my life that’s not going to happen, so I’m lucky that it’s still learning.”
Schauffele noted that even before he was injured, he was not all that enamored with his game. He was working on swing changes that helped him win the PGA Championship and the Open, but ones he felt were still not engrained.
But he took some time off after the Presidents Cup in September and played just one fall event. When he had to take time off after the first tournament in January, he suddenly was playing catch-up to get ready for the Masters.
Schauffele had to scramble to make the cut at his first two tournaments, tying for 40th at the Arnold Palmer and then finishing 72nd at the Players after a final round 81 saw him finish 25 shots back of winner Rory McIlroy—who also passed him for No. 2 in the Official World Golf Ranking behind Scottie Scheffler.
Schauffele found some form in his last start at the Valspar Championship, where he tied for 12th three weeks ago.
“I haven’t been in great form, but the only thing that really matters is that I think I can win and my team thinks I can win, and everyone else can just talk about whatever they talk about,” he said.
“I think I know what I’m capable of when I’m feeling good, when I’m not thinking of anything but getting the ball in the hole. It’s been a process to get back to that. I don’t have a ton of reps doing it, but there’s a lot for me to draw back on, sort of previous accomplishments, to sort of let that confidence grow.”
Schauffele, who has nine PGA Tour wins, also has four top-10s in seven appearances at the Masters, including a tie for second—a shot behind Tiger Woods—in 2019. The last time he missed a cut on the PGA Tour (his Tour-leading cut streak has now reached 60 tournaments) came at the 2022 Masters. He was eighth at Augusta National last year.
“Last year, I was firing on close to all cylinders at some points, and I sort of saw what that got me and how far that got me,” Schauffele said. “If I’m healthy, I’m moving well, I’m swinging well, I’m doing the things that I did to prepare correctly in the past, like I said, I don’t have a ton of reps under my belt this year, but I sort of know where that can get me.
“So there needs to be a lot of self-belief that I can get back to that spot, and that’s kind of where I’m laying my head to rest.”
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Xander Schauffele Relying on Experience to Carry Him at Masters.