Xander Schauffele’s 6-word phrase sums up Players heartbreak

Wyndham Clark’s Avid gamers Championship ended violently. His birdie attempt on 18 — a putt to drive a playoff with Scottie Scheffler at 20-under par — fell into the left side of the cup after which horseshoed viciously sooner than it lurched once more out the doorway side, the simplest place for a cruel staredown with the one that’d struck it. Clark’s chance on the win was out of the blue, definitively snuffed out.

As for Clark’s having fun with companion Xander Schauffele? Whose day appeared, midway by means of, favor it might probably be the most important of his PGA Tour occupation? His occasion ended with a whimper. With a missed putt at 17 and an imprecise tee shot at 18 and a protracted two-putt that cemented his loss by a single shot. The occasion that had felt like his out of the blue wasn’t.

SCHAUFFELE SAID SOMETHING INTERESTING on Saturday night, one factor he’s been discussing collectively together with his swing coach Chris Como.

“A gradual drip caves a stone,” he acknowledged, requested about his efforts to get larger.

A gradual drip caves a stone. I’d under no circumstances heard it. I appreciated the best way during which he acknowledged it. I questioned the place it received right here from. A Google search revealed zero precise matches, nonetheless there have been cousins.

There was this, from Margaret Atwood: “Water is affected individual. Dripping water wears away a stone. Don’t forget that, my teen. Be mindful you are half water.”

And this, from Ovid: “Dripping water hollows out stone, not by means of drive nonetheless by means of persistence.”

It echoed the stonecutter’s credo, the one Kobe Bryant taped to his locker and Max Homa later borrowed as his private ideology: “When nothing seems to help, I am going and take a look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps 100 situations with out as so much as a crack exhibiting in it. However on the hundred and first blow it could reduce up in two, and I do comprehend it was not that blow that did it, nonetheless all that had gone sooner than.”

Impressed to get dripping? Maybe hammering?

It’s a suitable expression for Schauffele, who likes the prolonged view. The prolonged view has been good to him — he’s been excellent at golf for a very very very long time, among the many many best golfers on the planet for a half-decade or additional. He’s been a every day contender in most important championships since then, too, logging 11 top-10s in 26 occupation begins. His resume is dotted with notable wins: the Tour Championship in 2017, a World Golf Championship in 2018, the Match of Champions in 2019, Olympic gold in 2021, the elevated Vacationers Championship in 2022, the co-sanctioned Genesis Scottish Open the week after that. He’s been a key decide in Presidents Cups and Ryder Cups. He’s completed a great deal of worthwhile. Nonetheless the 0-fer in majors nonetheless threatens to stipulate his terrific occupation. Worthwhile a Avid gamers Championship wouldn’t have modified his most important entire. Nonetheless it might have modified the dialog.

Creating transient, then once more, after getting so shut? That gave fuel to the doubters.

“I’ll most probably be a part of them in [drinking] the Haterade at this second,” Schauffele acknowledged, requested about his detractors. “Nonetheless it is what it is. These suck. After I went to mattress last night, it’s not exactly how I envisioned strolling off the 18th inexperienced. I’ll lick my wounds and correct once more to it subsequent week.”

THERE’S MORE GOING ON IN THE BACKGROUND. There’s additional to the work. Additional proof that Schauffele is all in on the tactic of getting larger, that he’s hammering away extra sturdy than he ever has. He moved to Florida last 12 months, the 12 months he turned 30, leaving his beloved West Coast behind. He left his lifelong swing coach — his father Stefan — behind, too; the two didn’t reduce up up nonetheless he’s been working with Chris Como on the day-to-day.

“From a very youthful age, my dad instructed me, ‘[I’m] joyful that I could also be your coach, nonetheless there may be maybe a time the place in order to be able to take it to the next diploma you would possibly should go see one other individual.’ So he acknowledged these phrases to me after I used to be a toddler, and he’ll nonetheless say them now.”

The next diploma looms. Collectively Schauffele and Como have been tweaking and he’s been selecting up swing velocity and selecting up distance, too. The work is working: This week marked his forty second consecutive made cut back and his seventh top-10 in his earlier 10 begins. Behind Scheffler, the clear-cut World No. 1, you can also make the case that Schauffele’s having fun with golf at as extreme a level as anybody else.

That’s the prolonged view. That’s the dripping.

Nonetheless there’s frustration, too. Whereas Sunday’s final spherical showcased just a few of Schauffele’s best stuff — a clutch nine-footer for par at No. 5 saved him in a share of the lead, a 14-footer for birdie at No. 7 sport him the outright profit, and he navigated delicate up-and-downs for birdie at No. 9 and No. 12 to sit down down squarely inside the driver’s seat — a lot of high-profile missteps worth him the occasion. An imprecise tee shot at No. 14 resulted in bogey. One different blocked drive at No. 15 led to a distinct bogey. His dynamic transient sport couldn’t bail him out each time. Untimely errors, he often known as ’em.

“When you’re attempting to win a occasion you’ve acquired to make these sketchy nine-footers,” he acknowledged.

He’d been making ’em all week. He missed a nine-footer at No. 15. He missed an eight-footer at No. 17. And that was that. These echoed misses on the once more 9 on the Genesis Invitational, the place Schauffele contended on Sunday sooner than fading to T4. They echoed runner-up finishes ultimately 12 months’s Tour Championship and Wells Fargo Championship. They echoed top-five finishes at majors, six of ’em for his occupation. It’s a sport of futility, in any case. While you’re looking for examples of an expert golfer’s failure, it’s best to have a great deal of fodder.

Schauffele was intentional about taking this one on the chin.

“My dad instructed me a really very long time up to now to commit, execute and accept,” he acknowledged. “I’m swallowing a heavy dose of acceptance correct now, nonetheless that’s type of what I did. I tried to commit, I executed poorly on some photos, and proper right here I am accepting it.”

He admitted it hurt, too. He acknowledged that he was bathing in a “bathtub of misery.” Schauffele isn’t any stranger to a vivid flip of phrase.

Nonetheless then there’s the massive picture. That he carried out in opposition to considered one of many strongest fields in golf and misplaced solely to the simplest participant on the planet. That he tied for second with two completely different top-10 professionals.

And that the dripping continues.

Dylan welcomes your suggestions at [email protected].