Xander Schauffele explains how he was rapidly humbled after Open win

It’s good to be Xander Schauffele proper now.

Simply days faraway from his second main championship win, the 30-year-old is taking a brief breather earlier than defending his Olympic gold medal in Paris subsequent week.

What has it been like for Schauffele within the aftermath of his unbelievable achievement at Royal Troon?

“What a experience it’s been these previous couple months,” Schauffele instructed ESPN’s Matt Barrie on “SportsCenter Wednesday.

What a experience certainly. After posting 12 high 10s within the majors since 2017, Schauffele has gained two of his previous three, with a T7 on the U.S. Open in between for good measure.

It was the efficiency on the PGA Championship at Valhalla in Could that opened the floodgates for Schauffele. His final-round 65 was sufficient to clip Bryson DeChambeau by one shot. The self-belief he manifested at Valhalla finally gave him an edge down the stretch at Royal Troon over the weekend.

“The momentum folks discuss in golf is all self perception, it’s all confidence,” Schauffele instructed Barrie. “Earlier within the week, I talked about profitable that first main, didn’t actually do something for me strolling into the foremost. But when I used to be ever in a spot to win the event, I felt prefer it was gonna give me an edge. And I really feel like that’s precisely type of what occurred.

“I both spoke it into existence or that’s kind of what occurred. As a result of coming down on that again 9, I used to be proper there within the hunt, and I did it just a few months in the past and I instructed myself, you may take management of this event, realizing you gained one simply prior, and realizing how arduous it’s, when you can sneak just a few birdies in when nobody else is, you’re gonna stroll away with this factor.”

With the Olympics looming, Barrie requested Schauffele what it might be like for him so as to add one other golf medal to his {hardware} haul.

“I could by no means come right down to earth,” Schauffele stated with a smile.

He did admit, nonetheless, to being rapidly grounded by his U.S. Olympic teammates.

“I performed golf for the primary time at the moment in opposition to, you recognize, I obtained Wyndham [Clark] and Colin [Morikawa] out right here,” he stated. “We’re out preparing for the Olympics and I misplaced to each of them at the moment. So, rapidly humbled and rapidly feeling the necessity to get again to work.”

The primary spherical of the Paris Olympics begins on Aug. 1. You’ll be able to watch Schauffele’s full interview on “SportsCenter” right here.

Golf.com Editor

As a four-year member of Columbia’s inaugural class of feminine varsity golfers, Jessica can out-birdie everybody on the masthead. She will out-hustle them within the workplace, too, the place she’s primarily accountable for producing each print and on-line options, and overseeing main particular tasks, akin to GOLF’s inaugural Model Is­sue, which debuted in February 2018. Her origi­nal interview collection, “A Spherical With,” debuted in November of 2015, and appeared in each within the journal and in video kind on GOLF.com.