Xander Schauffele is always a favorite in the Majors. He’s earned that. A 10-time PGA Tour winner, Schauffele won the PGA Championship and the Open Championship in 2024 and has a remarkable 18 top-10 finishes in 35 major starts.
His confidence level coming into this week in the 108th PGA Championship isn’t quite what it was in 2024, however, after a T60 last week in the Truist Championship – his worst finish of the season.
“It's significantly lower, obviously,” Schauffele said when asked about his confidence this week compared to what it was in 2024. “I finished close to last place last week. I'm actually feeling kind of good, surprisingly. It's one of those things where I tried my absolute hardest and almost came in last place last week, and that's just sometimes how a bad day in the office goes, but still beats being inside. Yeah, I'm looking forward to this week and sort of the rest of this year.”
Last week’s result aside, Schauffele had been on a run of good form starting with a third-place finish in the Players Championship. He followed that with a T4 at Valspar, a T9 at the Masters and a T12 at the RBC Heritage.
Though he didn’t play his best golf last week, Schauffele feels like he may have found something.
“I don't want to jinx it, you know what I'm saying?” the 32-year-old laughed. “Yeah, confidence is a tricky thing. I didn't have a whole lot last week, was a little bit in my head on what I was capable of doing. I actually did a few things pretty decent last week, surprisingly. Hopefully I can kind of drag a little bit of that into this week.”
Schauffele said his preparation for Major Championships has a lot to do with mindset and locking in.
The reason, he said, is majors are always tougher because there’s more stress and more people.
“There's sort of all those things at major championships,” he said. “If you can kind of get your game in a good place but your mind in a better one, you can kind of tap into whatever you think you're capable of doing.”
Much of the focus in the lead up to this PGA Championship has centered around the Donald Ross greens at Aronimink that carry a lot of slope. While many players feel they can be extremely aggressive off the tee, the greens are another story, particularly if you find the rough.
As with any Ross design, if you’re going to miss your target on the approach it had better be the right kind of miss.
“You can make it as easy or difficult on yourself as you'd like,’ Schauffele said. “I think, if you get aggressive to certain pins and short-side yourself, you're going to hit it to 20 or 30 feet at best, just based on how the surface, how fast and firm it is and how much it runs away from you. But at the same time, there's certain pockets where you can -- little fingers on the greens where you can hit a really good shot and get rewarded for it, depending on firmness obviously. The greens are definitely the thing to prepare for for this tournament. I think it will be fun to watch.”
He begins his bid for a third major title Thursday morning at 8:29 when he tees off with Brooks Koepka and Tyrrell Hatton.
Schauffele played in the 2018 BMW Championship at Aronimink and finished in a tie for third. However, given the conditions of the course that week – wet and soft – he said it’s hard to lean on any of that knowledge.
“I'm playing early on Thursday, I believe, so I'm kind of in that wave of setting the pace,” he said. “Usually when you're in the afternoon wave, you can kind of see what guys are doing and get a feel of what's possible out there. That's at least what I do. For the most part, I think in the morning the greens will be a little bit softer if it's not too cold, and they're going to firm up with the wind in the afternoon. If you're in the fairway, you can definitely be aggressive, but if you're in the rough, this rough is pretty gnarly.”