It took Xander Schauffele 28 starts to capture his first major championship.
Just two majors later, he’s got his second.
Schauffele, who a couple months ago broke through at the PGA Championship, separated from a bunched leaderboard with a clinical back-nine 31 as he closed out a two-shot Open Championship win at Royal Troon.
“I think winning the first one helped me a lot today on the back nine,” Schauffele said. “I had some feeling of calmness come through. It was very helpful on what has been one of the hardest back nines I’ve ever played in a tournament. I mean, it’s a dream come true to win two majors in one year.
“It took me forever just to win one, and to have two now is something else.”
Schauffele’s victory completed an American sweep of the majors this year, the first time that’s happened since 1982, a year that included Tom Watson’s Open triumph at Troon. Schauffele is also the first player to win multiple major titles in a single season since Brooks Koepka in 2018.
Perhaps most impressively, Schauffele’s closing 6-under 65 was his second final-round 65 to win a major this year. He’s the first player in history to accomplish that feat; Jack Nickalus, according to the Twenty First Group’s Justin Ray, is the only other player with more than one final-round 65 or better to win a major.
“I actually watched the highlights of Phil and Henrik to motivate myself for this week,” said Schauffele, referencing Stenson’s 2016 win at Troon after an epic Sunday dual with Mickelson. “I guess that paid off pretty nice.”
Schauffele began the final day at 3 under, one shot back of leader Billy Horschel and part of a logjam that featured six players tied for second and 12 guys within four shots of each other. And one by one, in a stiff 15-20 mph crosswind from the coast, Schauffele’s challengers squandered their chances: Scottie Scheffler four-putted the ninth for double bogey; Horschel bogeyed the “Postage Stamp,” the par-3 eighth, and added another dropped shot at No. 10; Justin Rose, playing alongside Schauffele and trying to become the first Open qualifier to win since Paul Lawrie in 1999, bogeyed No. 12 and then couldn’t match Schauffele’s birdie on the next hole; Thriston Lawrence was bogeying No. 12 to fall to 6 under while Schauffele was pushing to 7 under for a two-shot swing.
Starting with the par-5 sixth, Schauffele birdied six holes in an 11-hole stretch to become the first person all week to reach 9 under. That run included Schauffele’s defining shot of the championship: the only birdie of the round – and just the third of the weekend – at Troon’s most difficult hole, the par-4 11th, which is nicknamed “The Railway.” Schauffele tugged his drive slightly into the fescue, just yards from the gorse, before lifting a wedge shot up into the left-to-right, slightly-down wind and watching his ball take one hard bounce in front of the green and roll up to inside 3 feet.
“Sometimes when you’re in the fescue, it sort of takes a lot of things out of play,” Schauffele said. “You don’t really play for as much wind, you can hit way less club because the ball’s going to fly. It’s one of those moments where you’re just trying to bounce it up, and I actually hit it a little left of my line and it ended up rolling out perfectly.”
He wasn’t done; Schauffele drained putts of 16 feet and 12 feet at Nos. 13 and 14, respectively, and when Rose found the green in two at the par-5 16th, Schauffele hit three smart shots to give himself 4 feet for another birdie, which he made to grow his lead to three shots over Rose and Lawrence.
“That’s the deal I made with myself today to come off with no regrets,” Rose said after his best Open finish in 21 starts. “Obviously, yeah, I’ll have a few more chances, of course, but you know that this is a great opportunity today. You want to walk off the golf course going, ‘Yeah, I didn’t squander that.’ I ran putts at the hole today. I feel like I had opportunities. I felt like I took a lot of them.”
Schauffele just gave himself more chances than everyone – and capitalized more than anyone, too. He hit 16 of 18 greens in regulation on Sunday, including every single one on the final nine, where his 5-under 31 was the best of the weekend (Sungae Im’s 32 was the only other back-nine score better than 34 on Sunday). He also limited the stress, not needing to make a single par putt outside of 3 feet.
This week marks the 23rd time that Schauffele has entered a final round on the PGA Tour at T-2 or better. He’s now only won on six of those occasions, though he’s converted two straight, both majors.
Projected to move back to a career-best second in the Official World Golf Ranking, Schauffele now has at least a slight case for PGA Tour Player of the Year, an award that prior to this week was believed to be world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler’s in a runaway. Scheffler has six wins this season, including the Masters, but now Schauffele has two majors to go along with 10 other top-10s (Scheffler has 14 total top-10s, including a T-7 at Troon).
Schauffele won’t return to the Tour until the playoffs. Next up: his Olympic defense in Paris.
“Onto the next one,” Schauffele said.
“The fire,” he added later, “is still burning, maybe brighter than ever.”
During Schauffele’s PGA win, his dad, mentor and until recently his only instructor, Stefan, an aspiring Olympian in his day, was not in attendance, instead spending that week back in Hawaii working on his family’s land. On Sunday, Stefan was in tears as the one they call “Ogre” bear-hugged his son…
