Xander Schauffele admitted his game is in a ‘gross’ state after a miserable opening two rounds of The Players Championship left the world No 3 in danger of missing the cut for the first time in 59 tournaments.
Schauffele made a crucial birdie on the final hole of his second round to finish on one-under-par. At the time of writing, the leaders were on -11 and the cut line was level par.
The world No 3, who won two majors in 2024, has made the weekend of 58 consecutive PGA Tour events before this – the longest streak of any active player.
On the opening couple of days here, he played alongside Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler in a blockbuster group at TPC Sawgrass.
But while McIlroy surged to nine-under-par – and Scheffler battled to -5 – Schauffele admitted he is unsure whether he is in a good enough place to play next week’s Valspar Championship.
With just a few weeks to go before The Masters at Augusta, the world No 3 said: ‘The game feels pretty bad.’
Xander Schauffele offered a brutal verdict on his ‘gross’ performance at The Players this week
Schauffele made a birdie on the final hole of his second round to finish on one-under-par
Schauffele admitted: ‘(From) not hitting it close enough, to duffing chips, to missing every fairway, to hitting fairways to missing greens. It’s pretty gross, to be completely honest.’
When asked to assess his performance over the first two rounds here, he insisted ‘everything’ was ‘really bad’.
Schauffele is unsure exactly what is going wrong – and why he feels good on the range but struggles after stepping on to the first tee
‘Surprisingly it feels kind of close which is, I know, pretty sick to say,’ the American continued.
‘But I’ll get a little bit cozier on the range and kind of get in a decent pattern, and then as soon as I get on the course it seems to get a little bit more crooked.
‘I’m not sure if it’s something setup related or something that I’m not doing or not doing on the course that I do on the range, but it feels pretty bad.’
This is only the 31-year-old’s third tournament of the season as he recovers from a rib injury that kept him out for two months. But Schauffele does not consider that an excuse.
‘I almost missed the cut on what is a pretty easy course right now… I think I’m being just fine on myself,’ he said.
His practice is supposed to be limited – to protect his body – but the world No 3 said: ‘I’m about to blow that out of the water this afternoon.’
