With a chip on his shoulder and a monkey on his back, Xander Schauffele admitted that the last two years of near misses fueled his PGA Championship victory on Sunday.
Having finished in the top ten no fewer than a dozen times on one of golf’s biggest stages, the 30-year-old finally claimed his first major title here at Valhalla Golf Club.
The Californian shook off another second-place finish at the Wells Fargo Championship last week and managed to maintain his lead in Louisville, Kentucky.
And after years of always being the bridesmaid and never the bride, Schauffele admitted he had a chip on his shoulder — a chip that motivated his Valhalla victory.
“Definitely a chip on the shoulder,” he said after lifting the Wanamaker Trophy. ‘At the end of the day it just is what it is.
Xander Schauffele admitted his near misses at previous majors fueled his PGA Championship victory
“You ask the questions, investigate, and I have to sit here and answer them. Obviously it’s a lot easier to answer that question now that this thing is sitting next to me,” he continued, gesturing to the shiny trophy next to him as he addressed the media.
‘It’s just fuel, fuel for my fire. It’s always been evolving, and it’s certainly led to this.”
Schauffele had failed to win since his back-to-back wins at the Travelers Championship and Genesis Scottish Open in 2022. In that time, he has recorded four second-place finishes and 21 top-10 finishes.
“I have become very patient in recent years and have not achieved a single victory,” he added. ‘The people closest to me know how stubborn I can be.
‘Winning, I said it before, is a result. This is amazing. It’s super sweet. But when I break it down, I’m really proud of the way I handled certain moments on the course today differently than before.”
Schauffele has seven PGA Tour victories and an Olympic gold medal to his name, but until Sunday evening he had yet to enter the big winners’ circle.
Schauffele held off Bryson DeChambeau to win in Valhalla with a nerve-wracking final putt
“I don’t think I would ever consider it a deficit,” he said. ‘I saw it as someone who is trying very hard and needs more experience. All those short calls for me, even last week, that kind of feeling, it hits you at some point. It just makes this sweeter.”
Louisville was close to a two-way horse race to rival the Kentucky Derby when Bryson DeChambeau birdied the 18th to put Schauffele on top, forcing him to match it to avoid a playoff.
Schauffele admitted that a shootout against the great DeChambeau was an outcome he desperately tried to avoid.
“I was quite nervous,” he said of his pilgrimage to the 18th. ‘I walked upstairs, I saw a piece from left to right. I kept reading it, kept panning a little. I started looking at me from right to left and I thought, oh my God, this is not what I want for a winning putt.
‘Luckily it was uphill, about two meters high. In the end I played it fair. He went left and caught the left side. Just so much relief.
“When it came in – I don’t really remember it coming in, I heard everyone roaring and I looked up at the sky with relief.”