ATLANTA — At this stage, we start to wonder why they even make Xander Schauffele go through the bother of an entire afternoon of golf here at East Lake and the Tour Championship. The man’s in fine shape, he obviously doesn’t need the steps. The whole playing part of program is such a silly formality in his case, as frivolous as extending one’s pinkie while sipping tea.
Simpler to just ask Schauffele to stop by official scoring for a couple of minutes every day, have him sign for some random score in the low-to-mid-60s and send him on his way. Then, wherever that puts him on the leaderboard, Venmo him a bunch of money Sunday night.
He blistered East Lake his rookie year of 2017, and continues to blister it still. Why, Friday, with his 22nd lap around the place, he posted his lowest score yet, a 7-under 63. That put him a skinny two strokes back of Scottie Scheffler, which should concern the world’s No. 1 player. He’s going into the weekend basically playing a pick-up game with Steph Curry on the Warrior’s own driveway.
