NORTH BERWICK, Scotland – Xander Schauffele continues to make up for lost time.
Without winning for more than two years, Schauffele got his fourth win in the last 12 months on Sunday when he overcame a difficult patch in the middle of his round with two key birdies and a wild pair for a pair of 70 to win the ‘Scottish Open. .
The following is another test on Scottish soil, this the purest of all, the Open Championship at St. Andrews. Schauffele is heading home to golf as one of the most popular players in the world.
It was the first time the PGA Tour co-sanctioned a European tour event.
“It’s just an honor to win first,” said Schauffele, who now has seven career titles on the PGA Tour.
Xander Schauffele holds the Scottish Open trophy after his victory on Sunday, which was the fourth in the last 12 months. Andrew Redington / Getty Images
His 8-foot save at par-3 17 at The Renaissance Club gave him a 2-shot lead, and the 28-year-old San Diego player played it cleverly from there. He pulled the iron off tee 18 to avoid trouble and ended up missing an 8-foot pair that only affected the margin.
Schauffele finished with 7 under 273, 1 shot ahead of Kurt Kitayama (66).
Kitayama had a 1-shot lead back again and was still tied until he missed a 6-foot putt on hole 17 and then had to wait to see if his score would be enough.
Kitayama’s consolation was to win one of three places on the course at The Open, his third consecutive time in the oldest golf championship. The other two places were for Brandon Wu and Jamie Donaldson, who tied for sixth.
Many others had the opportunity to earn a place at St. Andrews. Rickie Fowler has played every open championship since 2010 and has reached the final round of the Scottish Open within range. But he closed with a 75 and returned home across the Atlantic.
Ryan Palmer was also in position until he played the back nine with two bogeys and no birdies and missed 2 shots. It was harder for Alex Smalley, who only needed a pair on the 18th to earn a spot. He did bogey.
It wasn’t easy for Schauffele either.
He started the last round with a 2-shot lead and made birds in the initial two holes. He was leading 4 shots after five holes. And when he got to the last nine, he was 1 shot behind.
“That was stressful,” Schauffele said. “I’m not going to make up the pig here. It was a very normal day, probably my worst thing this week. You can’t get ahead in the golf of links. I was ahead, behind, ahead, behind “I just kept my head down.”
He started turning in his favor when Schauffele made a 15-foot birdie putt on hole 14 to regain the lead, and then reached par-5 16th in 2 to establish a 2-putt birdie that extended his lead. has 2 shots. . Equally important was the 17th, when he put from behind the green about 8 feet through the hole and got the pair to hold his pillow.
Schauffele has now won two consecutive PGA Tour outings – his victory at JP McManus Pro-Am in Ireland earlier this week does not count – entering the last major of the year. The last player to win twice in a row before a major was Dustin Johnson in 2016, and then tied for ninth place in the open championship at Royal Troon.
Schauffele had gone more than three years without a win, coming out with the Sental Tournament of Champions in Kapalua to start 2019, and he was blushing.
But then Schauffele won Olympic gold at the Tokyo Olympics last summer. He teamed up with Patrick Cantlay to win the New Orleans Zurich Classic in late April, and has now added two more. This brings him to number 5 in the world.
“Just to get over the hump, honestly, it was great,” he said of his first PGA Tour victory this year in New Orleans. “It was definitely a starting point for me, as you can see.”
Joohyung Kim, the 20-year-old South Korean, also had a brief share of the lead with a brilliant play on the 17th in which his ball rolled from the back slope to 5 feet for the bird. But he caught bogey on the 18th and shot 67 to finish third. He moved up to number 39, his first time in the top 50.
Jordan Spieth had his share of adventures again.
He was 1 shot from the lead until he threw his starting pitch on the 14th into the tall grass, made a long hack and made double bogey, and then caught bogey on the 15th with a wedge in the hand from the fairway. Spieth had two birds, three bogeys and a double bogey in the back nine and shot 72 to tie the 10th.