Xander Schauffele continued his momentum at the PGA Championship on Thursday.
He lost at Valhalla with a 9-under 62, the lowest score in PGA Championship history. His 62 also matched the best score in major championship history by three players.
Interestingly, Schauffele shot a 62 at the U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club a year ago. As such, he became the first male golfer to hit multiple 62s in a major.
His record-setting round came days after Rory McIlroy outran him to win the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow. After the first round, Schauffele opened with a three-shot lead.
Despite last week’s disappointing result, Schauffele believes he is currently playing the best golf of his career.
“Probably, yes. I think there are moments where he has spurts and feels like he has good control of the ball. He’s seeing the greens really well. He’s chipping really well,” Schauffele said.
“But maintaining high performance over the long term is difficult.”
Schauffele has played well many times in the past, including in major championships. He has more than a dozen top-10 finishes in the majors, but has yet to win that elusive title.
“It’s weird that when you don’t win, you want to win even more,” Schauffele added.
“The reaction, at least for me, is to want it more and more and to want to try harder and harder and harder. The top feels far away and I feel like I have a lot of work to do. But you just slowly chip away at it.”
The former San Diego State Aztec started with a par on the easy par-5 10th, unable to get up or down for birdie. But things started to change on the tough par-3 11th, when Schauffele hit a 6-iron to two feet. He made a birdie and made a tough par save on the 12th.
Birdies followed on the 13th, 15th and 16th holes, and Schauffele was suddenly at the top of the leaderboard thanks to a strong putter.
He rounded out the front nine with a birdie on the par-5 18th, historically the easiest hole on the course. His electric play continued on the remaining nine holes, finishing with a score of 5 under and 31.
Schauffele birdied the difficult par-4 second. He then came close on the 351-yard par-4 fourth for his seventh birdie of the day.
Two more par breakers followed on the fifth and seventh holes, and Schauffele walked to the eighth tee on the cliff of history.
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No player has ever shot a 61 in the majors, but Schauffele had a chance to do it for the first time. He needed a birdie on the final hole to further etch his name into the record books, but he fell just short.
Nevertheless, Schauffele accomplished a lot on Thursday as well. His 62 not only set a tournament record, but also a new course record at Valhalla.
When asked if he could move down the rankings, Schauffele said: “I’m not really that way.”
“In the sense that I want to go to practice right now, there are always shots or chips that I can break up that I feel like I could have hit better, but I’m very happy with how I played.”
Schauffele should be satisfied after Thursday, but he won’t be completely satisfied unless he wins the Wanamaker Trophy late Sunday evening.
It’s only Thursday and there’s still plenty of golf left, but Schauffele has finally put himself in a great position to break through.
Jack Mirko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through.Be sure to check it out @_PlayingThrough Cover more golf. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko In the same way.
