Xander Schauffele stood in the middle of the ninth fairway with a lot of pressure on his shoulders. Sitting evenly, World No. 2 had to birdie the last hole of the day to earn Saturday's tea time and extend the streaks of the consecutive cut streaks with an impressive 59th consecutive time.
His performance partners, Rory McIlroy and Scotty Scheffler, were both non-flammable, and after seeing McIlroy enter the tree and Scheffler push his shot to the right of the green it was finally Schaufele's turn to play. He ended around green on this par 5 and had to arrive up and down for the birdie to reach 1 under.
“I was certainly thinking about the cut line,” Schaufele said.
“I knew I needed to make birdies.”
Schaufele then began to gain towering high absorption. His balls drilled high and settled 50 feet away from the green pin. From there he posted a 1 under and shot calmly twice for the birdies needed to earn Saturday tee time on the player.
“[Wind] I was lucky enough to help my right so I could have flipped the hybrid that was aimed at the right side and pulled my hair, but I was wondering if I could hit it somewhere on the right side.
“Fortunately, I bumped into the green.”
Outside that clutch shot, the two-time major winner was not visible near the players who won the PGA Championship and Claret Jug a year ago. He missed a rib injury two months before this season and returned to the competition at last week's Arnold Palmer Invitational.
He has previously called his performance “really bad” and added that “everything” is poor. The statistics also reflect that. Schauffele lost 1.374 strokes on the approach and only managed seven birdies on 36 holes.
“Duff the chips, miss all fairways, get away with the fairways, don't bring it close enough to get the green missing,” explained Schaufele.
“To be totally honest, it's pretty bad. So if I could put this cut out, that would be fine. But the game feels pretty bad.”
Jack Mirco is a golf staff writer who plays SB Nation. Follow him with x @jack_milko.
