NORTH BERWICK, SCOTLAND | The mood is good at the Renaissance Club, home of this week’s Genesis Scottish Open. On Tuesday, players were comparing notes on the practice ground on how the last three places for next week’s Open Championship at Royal Portrush are ready and waiting for the leading three finishers who are not already exempt. That apart, there was good cheer in the media centre with the arrival of Xander Schauffele, the defending Open champion.
Now if anyone could have been excused for doing a Rory McIlroy, a Shane Lowry or a Collin Morikawa in saying he did not feel obliged to speak the press, it was Schauffele. After all, he had gone from vying with Scottie Scheffler for the world No. 1 spot last year to a 2025 season in which, to date, he has had a single top-10 finish, and six top-25s.
It was when a writer asked, “Given the unusual start to your year, where are you right now, where is your confidence level?” that Schauffele broke into the widest of smiles. He said he was doing his best to believe that his confidence level was good, before admitting: “I don’t think I’ve given myself a lot of reasons to believe that I’m playing OK. It’s been a pretty bad year to be honest.” As far as he was concerned, it had been a downright awful year.
The way he had played prior to being sidelined with a rib-cage injury early this year had been “to look at the target and hit at the target.” On his return, that talent had disappeared. He has been trying to correct an assortment of flaws in his swing – and the hardest part about it has been “taking my hands off the wheel and feeling like I’m just swinging and playing golf again,” he said.
On to another media question: “By winning the Open last year, how much has that changed your life in terms of being Open champion? Do you find there’s more pressure on you?”
Schauffele hit back with a jovial response: “The biggest change I had was trending towards an alcoholic.”
“Thanks for giving us a headline,” came the reply.
Schauffele laughed and suggested that a bit of context would not go amiss whilst knowing full well that his comment would slip out somewhere.
And if it did, he told GGP, it wasn’t going to worry him. He’d had a strict upbringing, and he happily understood that speaking to the media was part of his job. There were times when he had had a quiet word with some individual who veered from the truth but never had he felt tempted to make an all-round fuss.
Having hinted earlier that playing in the kind of weather we get in these parts might take his mind off his technical problems, you had to think that his memory of Royal Portrush and “the hardest rain I ever saw” during the 2019 Open Championship there could play its part in his comeback.
It is entirely possible that a player in his 40s could win at Royal Portrush. Justin Rose, 44, finished tied second last year and lost in a playoff to Rory McIlroy at this year’s Masters, while no-one will ever forget Tom Watson’s performance in losing in a playoff to Stewart Cink in the 2009 Open at Turnberry at the age of 59.
Meanwhile, those who must be hoping against hope that they might get one of those three last places at Portrush included 47-year-old Luke Donald and 42-year-old Alex Norén.
Both had their moments at this year’s PGA Championship. Donald has been playing only one week out of four because of his commitments as Europe’s Ryder Cup captain, but his opening 67 at Quail Hollow – which left him in a share of fourth place at the end of the first round – served as some fillip. Especially at a time when he also has his eye on the PGA Tour Champions: “I can’t wait to try it because golf is a way of life for all of us.”
As for Norén, the Swede who according to Scotland’s Bob MacIntyre is one of the hardest workers of them all, he was second after 54 holes in the year’s second major before going on to finish T17.
Unlike Schauffele, Norén’s winter injury – a badly torn hamstring – had worked out for the better. He spent three or four months at home with his family and, though he was unable to play golf, he coached his children and found a new level of perspective in his golfing life.
It is entirely possible that a player in his 40s could win at Royal Portrush. Justin Rose, 44, finished tied second last year and lost in a playoff to Rory McIlroy at this year’s Masters, while no-one will ever forget Tom Watson’s performance in losing in a playoff to Stewart Cink in the 2009 Open at Turnberry at the age of 59. Watson couldn’t, he said, have done that at the Masters or any of the other major venues, but “out here on a links, I had a chance and I knew I had that chance starting out.”
He may have won eight majors but you would expect that that runner-up finish in his 60th year meant as much to him and his family as any of that collection. “It was fun,” he said, “to be in the mix again and having kids who were my kids’ age looking up at you.”