If anyone should resent and resist the changes they’ve made to the East Lake Golf Club course in advance of this week’s Tour Championship, it’s the one guy who’s OK with putting an “X” on his scorecard.
In fact, if Xander Schauffele was really serious about protecting his interests he would have spent the better part of this year chained to one of East Lake’s trees they weren’t turning to mulch. Throwing himself in front of a bulldozer or two wouldn’t have been such a bad idea, either. Anything to try to stop the massive makeover.
“One hundred percent, yeah. Absolutely,” Schauffele said with a smirk when asked Tuesday if he ever gave that strategy a thought.
“My caddie, as well. He probably would have gone first.”
They’re not real big on civil disobedience on the pro golf circuit, but in his case it would have been completely understandable.
The old layout had been so very good to Schauffele. Every year at East Lake, suddenly he turns into Brad Pitt and they’re shooting another “Oceans 11″ remake. Schauffele always goes low, and makes a big score.
Alas, the man with a record low scoring average at the Tour Championship (66.96 over 28 rounds), the man who has made Kirk Cousins-ish type money in Atlanta ($43 million in seven previous Tour Championship appearances) and the man closest to top-seed Scottie Scheffler this week and a $25 million first-place payout is looking at a whole new landscape now.
Schauffele’s playground has been dramatically rearranged. His comfort zone just got uncomfortable, every hole asking things of this select 30-player field that it has never asked before.
Can Schauffele, in particular, answer? That’s one of the week’s leading intrigues.
He’s hardly underplaying the challenge:
“I mean, it’s just a new golf course. I’m kind of a glass half full guy, so I’ve played a lot of new courses this year that I’ve done OK at, and this is a brand new property. Literally the bunkers are new, the grasses are new in the fairways, the greens are new, the grass on the greens is new, the runouts are different, the slopes are different. I think the only thing that’s the same are the directions of the hole.
“Whatever record I had is the past. I have no memory or anything really on any hole to go off of, not even a tree I could aim at that I used to aim at. It’s just that different.
“To me, it’s got the same name – it’s East Lake Golf Club. It’s on the same property, similar square footage. But that’s about it.”
Looking back, Schauffele’s resume at East Lake is 24-carat. His eight-straight appearances in the playoff finale are the most by any active player, tied with Tony Finau. Three times over that span he had the low 72-hole score, but won his only Tour Championship back in 2017 before the staggered scoring system was introduced and the Tour Championship was separate from the FedEx Cup. In three runner-up finishes since, he just hasn’t quite been able to overcome a lower starting position.
Looking ahead, he’s starting Thursday in second again, at 8 under, behind FedEx Cup points leader Scheffler (beginning at 10 under). Under any usual circumstances, Schauffele would have to be considered the favorite to leapfrog Scheffler given his historically low scoring here and the fact that Scheffler has failed to win from the pole position the last two years.
But the picture is all pixilated now by the East Lake renovation.
They won’t move the right field fence at Yankee Stadium back 40 feet on Aaron Judge. Nor will they narrow the Arrowhead Stadium field by 10 yards on Patrick Mahomes. But, dang if they didn’t spring some profound changes on the modern lord of East Lake.
Schauffele and Scheffler have battled all year for preeminence on the PGA Tour. Schauffele has a pair of major championships – the PGA and the British Open – while Scheffler has the Masters, five other PGA Tour titles and an Olympic gold medal. They get paired together all the time here at season’s end and will again during Thursday’s first round of the Tour Championship.
The familiarity has bred only respect.
Scheffler spoke Tuesday on how Xander offered up some of the most sincere congratulations he received after winning his second Masters this April. And, Scheffler added, “When I see Xander winning a golf tournament and winning multiple majors in one year, I just look at him as a person that has really earned that. He’s put in the work, he’s made the right sacrifices, and he’s earned those wins and played good at the right time.”
Come Thursday, though, Schauffele is prepared to bear his competitive fangs. He’s tired at season’s end, but he’s also tired of shooting low and not winning the Tour Championship. “No doubt about it, I’m very hungry,” he said.
Same wolf. Entirely different hunting grounds.
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