Charlotte (AFP) – Defending champion Xander Schauffele says he still has something to prove at this week’s PGA championship and doesn’t feel much different as a two-time major winner than he did a year ago without a major crown. The 31-year-old American won his first major title in last year’s PGA Championship at Valhalla, beating Bryson DeChambeau with a 72nd-hole birdie, and took his second in last year’s British Open. This week he tries to defend a major for the first time at the 107th PGA Championship at Quail Hollow.
“I feel like I’ve done it before, but at the same time, I feel I’m still trying to prove myself as well,” Schauffele said Tuesday. “I don’t look at it too different or feel too different as a whole.” After missing two months of the season with a rib injury, Schauffele is just getting back into top form.
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“I’m nitpicking myself around every corner versus when I’m in sort of mid-season form, I’m hitting similar quality shots or bad shots or good shots across the board,” he said. “The difference really is, when you’re in the moment, I think you don’t nitpick. You’re just on a mission. You’re on a mission to do one thing, and that’s to win. It’s sort of a whatever-it-takes mentality, and you’re not sitting there nitpicking yourself on the small things.”
“It has been a process for me to get back to that point where I’m OK with hitting bad shots or hitting it out of place and just making the best of it and sort of moving along from there. That has been a process coming back.” Schauffele’s best finish this season was a share of eighth at the Masters last month, but his work has been hampered this week by rain the past four days that has dumped more than two inches of rain at Quail Hollow.
“Game is coming along slowly but surely. Just getting as many reps in as I can,” Schauffele said. “It has already been off to an interesting week with the weather. It’s definitely one of the hurdles everyone’s going to have to overcome this week. Fortunately, I’ve been here a few times. Delays and rain and things of that nature, they can kind of fool you a little bit on this property just because they haven’t been able to get the mowers out on the fairways.”
Schauffele expects firm and fast greens by the weekend when drier weather is expected. “The greens are exceptionally firm for getting a few inches of rain the last three or four days,” he said. “I heard the SubAir (drying system) going on the greens, and I imagine this is our last sort of batch of rain coming through, at least for the next 24 hours. Thursday morning, I see these greens being, who knows, a foot and a half faster. If we can get some sun and some wind out, they’re going to dry up really quick and get to that Quail Hollow that we’re all used to seeing.”
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