PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — The Claret Jug is probably too far out of reach. Xander Schauffele made a run Saturday at getting back into contention and defending the title he won a year ago at Royal Troon.
He simply had too much ground to make up, and even with a solid round at Royal Portrush, the two-time major winner is going to need a lot to go right on Sunday in order to have a chance again at the British Open.
“If I’m nitpicking my whole deal, I needed three more today to feel like I’m somewhere close enough to whatever Scott [Scheffler] or [Matt] Fitzpatrick or Haotong [Li] are going to post,” said Schauffele, who shot 5-under-par 66 to move to 206, 7 under par.
“I don’t react [to leaderboards], but today I was. I just felt like there’s no point in not. I need to find any bit of—not that I’m not motivated, but any extra motivation I can to giddy up and try to get something done. There’s a few guys that are playing some incredible golf.”
Schauffele has basically spent the entire year playing catch-up. And that’s what he’ll be doing on Sunday.
After an early-season rib injury that knocked Schauffele out for six weeks, he’s never quite got back to the form he showed last year in winning both the PGA Championship and the Open.
At third in the Official World Golf Ranking, there has still been some solid results. He tied for 12th at the U.S. Open and tied for eighth last week at the Scottish Open. He’ll enter the final round here in the top 10, but Scottie Scheffler is making it difficult for anyone to catch him.
“I’m so far back, who knows with the weather and whatnot. I believe in myself and what I can do. So just blackout hopefully ... try to shoot something and give myself a lot of opportunities.
“It’s hard. I think it’s pretty hard… depending on how windy it is, if I was leading a tournament, I’d want it to play hard just because you know no one’s going to shoot 62 or 63, whatever it is,” he said. “If you shoot level to 1 under, you’re going to win the tournament. Chasing is difficult when you’re on a links course with weather and wind and bounces and things like that.
“I feel like I definitely—I feel like I’ve been in chase mode all year, which it is what it is.”
Schauffele had two eagles in his round at the 7th and 12th holes, added birdies at the 2nd and 15th, but rued a couple of missed opportunities that kept the round from being even lower. He bogeyed the 4th hole and failed to birdie the par-5 5th.
Still, it’s another sign of progress, even though he was unhappy enough with his play on Saturday to feel he needed to call his instructor, Chris Como, to get a few things sorted.
“Today was nice,” he said. “Had a nice phone call with Chris last night. Yesterday felt terrible. Even with some of the shots coming in, I felt like I was luck boxing my way through the back nine, somehow making contact and then hitting it somewhere near the hole and getting it in.
“Today felt like I was in more control. Obviously the weather was much nicer and sort of what we’re used to on the PGA Tour. But it felt like I could control my golf ball a lot more.”
A strong Sunday might not be enough to get Schauffele a victory but he’s moved up slowly in the FedEx Cup rankings lately and is projected to be well inside the top 50, which would assure him signature event status for next year if he can get to the BMW Championship next month.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Xander Schauffele May Be Too Far Back at British Open, but Is Making Progress.