Set back by early injury, World No. 3 Xander Schauffele is battling to stay in the playoffs

MEMPHIS — For nearly 90 minutes after he signed for a disappointing two-over 72 Friday in the second round of the FedEx St. Jude Championship, Xander Schauffele beat balls under the broiling sun, sufficiently backing up with actions his final words before heading to the range. “You know,” he said, “I’m trying hard.”

Starting Tuesday with an extended range session, in which he was working on getting more width into his swing, it’s safe to say no one has been trying harder at TPC Southwind. Which makes his first two rounds tough to stomach and adds to a tightening gut for the weekend in the first leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs.

Not that there was a trace of urgency in his demeanor—even if his entire season has been one long exercise in catching up.

At even-par 140 through 36 holes and tied for 47th place, Schauffele is in a battle to not just advance to the Tour Championship in two weeks—an event he never has missed and where he has been exceptional—but to protect his place among the top 50 in the FedEx Cup points standings to advance to next week’s BMW Championship. The two-time major winner entered the week 42nd and has slipped to 48th on the projected list.

“There's a lot of golf to be played, so I'm just trying to get to BMW at this point,” Schauffele, ranked third in the world, said. “In order for me to have a good chance to get to East Lake, I’ve got to play BMW, obviously. So yeah, that’s first. I’ve got 36 holes and, yeah, I'm just trying to play a little bit better golf each day. So today was a little bit of a setback from yesterday.”

Schauffele missed substantial time early in the season, fighting through the season-opening Sentry before being sidelined with a rib injury. He didn’t return until the Arnold Palmer Invitational in early March and found himself 141st on the points list.

Though he has kept his cut streak alive all season, extending it to a tour-best run of 69 in a row entering this week’s no-cut event, Schauffele has been slightly off, posting just three top-10 finishes.

“I was never going to [catch up] with these elevated events with no cut, missing two of them [the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and Genesis Invitational]. It was going to be a pretty big thing to overcome,” he said. “And then I missed another three different events where I usually get a lot of points.”

Those, he said, were The American Express, Farmers Insurance Open and WM Phoenix Open. The Farmers is played annually at Torrey Pines, a home game for the San Diego native, and missing the Genesis was doubly disappointing because it had been moved to Torrey Pines South after the Los Angeles wildfires prevented the event being held at its traditional site, Riviera Country Club.

Other than adding the Valspar Championship after the Players Championship, Schauffele hasn’t chased points, preferring to pace himself to not risk re-injury. He took the last two weeks off after a T-7 in defense of his British Open title at Royal Portrush. “I just haven’t been in shape to do that,” he said.

It would be a cruel irony if he did not make it back to East Lake Golf Club, where he won the Tour Championship in his debut in 2017, and where he has been the best player there since, with 39 of 40 rounds of par or better and three runner-up finishes to go with his win. Being the best player in that stretch would have resulted in additional wins had not the PGA Tour instituted the starting strokes format in 2019. The tour reinstated a straight-up 72-hole contest for this year.

“Obviously, I’d like to get there,” he said with a grin. “Right now, I’m working on getting a little better. The bar is pretty low at the moment. As it stands, top10 here is probably six under at the end of today, so I need to look at making up six shots. It wouldn’t take much to make me happy at this point. Just have to do better.”