PINEHURST, N.C. – Xander Schauffele finally climbed the summit that was Mount Valhalla and claimed his first major championship at the PGA Championship in May.
The win propelled Schauffele to a career high of No. 2 in the Official World Golf Ranking but the climb to the top of the game continuesin earnest on Thursday at the 124th U.S. Open at Pinehurst Resort & Country Club’s No. 2 Course.
“All of us are climbing this massive mountain. At the top of the mountain is Scottie Scheffler. I won this today, but I’m still not that close to Scottie Scheffler in the big scheme of things,” Schauffele said after winning the Wanamaker Trophy. “I got one good hook up there in the mountain up on that cliff, and I’m still climbing. I might have a beer up there on that side of the hill there and enjoy this, but it’s not that hard to chase when someone is so far ahead of you.”
Schauffele may have had that celebratory beer but he’s saving the real celebration for later this month when he’s back in his native San Diego. He made it clear that there’s more work to do, noting that he’s only checked one box.
“Just a lot of unchecked boxes,” he said.
Having shed the label of the Best Player Never to Win a Major, the knee-jerk reaction is to say that Schauffele’s breakthrough will open the floodgates. Adam Scott and Justin Rose, who both rose to No. 1 in the world after winning their first major, are still stuck at one and know all too well how tricky winning the second major can be. But NBC golf on-course reporter Jim “Bones” Mackay contends that it’s way easier for a player to win a second major than his first.
“It would not surprise me if Xander picks off another major before this year is over, so why not here at the U.S. Open?” Mackay said during a media call ahead of the 124th U.S. Open.
Mackay speaks from experience. As Phil Mickelson’s longtime caddie, he watched Mickelson have several close calls, including here at Pinehurst No. 2 in 1999 when he finished second to Payne Stewart. Mickelson didn’t claim his first major until age 34 at the 2004 Masters but went on to win five more to match the career total of Lee Trevino and Nick Faldo.
Mackay said one can draw a comparison between Schauffele and Mickelson, although Schauffele, who won in his 28th major start and endured 11 top-10 finishes in major championships since 2017, before his breakthrough didn’t have to wait nearly as long to get the major monkey off his back.
“I just think that Xander is a very, very wise 30-year-old,” Mackay said. “You listen to the comments that he makes in his pre and postgame time with the press, and I think that it speaks to the headspace that he’s in, and it’s very, very comfortable and solid … I think he’s a guy that’s here now for the long term, and I think that he has a chance to run off a few major championships here in very short order.”
Schauffele’s game tends to translate well to the U.S. Open. In the last seven years, he’s the only player to finish in the top 15 in every single U.S. Open, including a tie for third at Pebble Beach Golf Links in California in 2019. What’s his secret sauce to being in contention so often at his national championship?
“Just what I bring week to week, just a little bit of extra patience,” he said. “You have to ramp that up a little bit more during these weeks. All U.S. Opens, they’re unique in their own way. But they all feel like par is a great score, and you really have to just plot your way around a property.”
Could he pick off another this week and go back-to-back? NBC’s Notah Begay III wondered during the same media call last week if the momentum Schauffele gained from his PGA triumph would spur him to greater heights while acknowledging that is often easier said than done.
“Do you find a new mountain to climb?” wondered Golf Channel’s Paul McGinley. “The next couple of months will tell us a lot. It’s not a given he will keep on going.”
Schauffele, the gold medalist in the rescheduled 2021 Tokyo Olympics, said he’s not one to live in the past; he’ll look back with fond memories of the PGA later. He’s ready to chase major No. 2 and spoke about how the Memorial last week, where as he put it, “par was your friend,” was good prep for this week’s thorough examination in the sand hills of North Carolina. Typically a U.S. Open exposes any weakness in a player’s game. Schauffele knows he’ll need his best stuff, especially playing the first two rounds alongside No. 3 Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler, who remains the player on top of the mountain, in a power-packed threesome (1:14 p.m. ET).
“Every week we play, he seems to build a bigger lead, and somehow make the mountain even taller for all of us to climb,” Schauffele said of Scheffler. “That’s all he’s been doing, and hats off to him for being so consistent and playing at such a high level for such a long time. I believe I can do it, but it’s going to take some time.”
