Xander Schauffele says it’s good to lurk below the radar on the 89th Masters after battling a rib harm — even whereas he chases a 3rd victory in 4 majors.
The 31-year-old American, who took his first main titles ultimately yr’s PGA Championship and British Open, says he felt underestimated earlier than profitable majors.
“It’s form of how individuals would discuss me once I was enjoying nicely,” Schauffele stated.
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“I haven’t been in nice kind however the one factor that issues is that I feel I can win and my workforce thinks I can win, and everybody else can simply discuss no matter they discuss.” After an early season harm layoff and a battle to enhance, Schauffele stated he feels he can seize a inexperienced jacket this week at August Nationwide.
“I don’t suppose I’d be right here if I didn’t,” Schauffele stated. “I do know what I’m able to once I’m feeling good, once I’m not considering of something however getting the ball within the gap. It has been a course of to get again to that.
“I don’t have a ton of reps doing it, however there’s so much for me to attract again on, earlier accomplishments to form of let that confidence develop.” Tokyo Olympic champion Schauffele made a breakthrough final Might after 12 main top-10 finishes and not using a victory by profitable the PGA at Valhalla and added to his main trophy haul at Royal Troon final July.
“Final yr I used to be firing on near all cylinders at some factors,” stated Schauffele. “So there must be plenty of self-belief that I can get again to that spot and that’s sort of the place I’m laying my head to relaxation.” Third-ranked Schauffele feels extra assured at formidable Augusta Nationwide enjoying for the primary time as a significant winner.
“That goes for each main I play in now,” he stated. “If I can get myself in a great place — I’m going to fail at occasions — however man, I feel I can take care of it so much higher than I used to have the ability to earlier than profitable.”
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– ‘Cooler to be nearer’ –
Schauffele shared thirtieth on the season-opening PGA event of champions, skipped occasions in his native Southern California whereas recovering from the harm, then shared fortieth on the Arnold Palmer Invitational and positioned 72nd at The Gamers Championship.
Indicators of enchancment got here at March’s PGA Valspar Championship, the place he shared twelfth and fired a season-best 66 on Sunday.
Schauffele says he appears like he has turned a nook prior to now month along with his restoration, as a lot mentally as bodily.
“I’ve by no means actually handled harm earlier than, so I’ve by no means actually been sidelined,” he stated.
“I’m looking for all of the positives to connect to the state of affairs.
“Me not being damage earlier than and sitting at residence considering all these ideas, watching everybody else play golf and form of fly by me, it has been very motivating.” Schauffele arrived at Magnolia Lane final yr and not using a main win. Now he’s midway to a profession Grand Slam.
“Imagine it or not, it was all the time a thought earlier than I received any of them,” he stated of taking all 4 majors. “It’s so much cooler to be so much nearer to that dream of mine at 31 versus 35 or 36 not having received one.”
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– Scheffler and McIlroy chase historical past at Masters –
Prime-ranked defending champion Scottie Scheffler and world quantity two Rory McIlroy will take a swing at golf historical past on this week’s 89th Masters.
The superstars are most fancied by oddsmakers when the yr’s first main golf showdown begins Thursday at Augusta Nationwide.
Monday’s opening follow spherical was halted for the day after simply over 3 1/2 hours by inclement climate and spectators had been evacuated from the course.
Scheffler, the 2022 and 2024 Masters inexperienced jacket winner, seeks his third main title and will grow to be simply the fourth back-to-back Masters champion after Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Nick Faldo. Solely Nicklaus has received three of 4 as Scheffler can.
“I like the best way my swing has began to really feel,” Scheffler stated. “Undoubtedly some optimistic momentum.” Scheffler, whose 9 wins final yr additionally included Paris Olympic gold, missed the beginning of the season after injuring his hand on Christmas, however says he has recovered from the setback.
“Bettering within the ball-striking,” Scheffler stated. “My ball putting has not been nearly as good because it has been the previous couple years. All of that’s getting the physique again to the place it has been.
“Lots of it isn’t with the ability to get the reps. I really feel like I’m getting sharper and sharper.” Scheffler, who performed a follow spherical Sunday along with his mom at Augusta Nationwide, was a runner-up on the Houston Open in March, along with his two lowest rounds of the season, a 62 and a 63.
McIlroy, a four-time main winner in search of his first main triumph since 2014, can full a profession Grand Slam with a Masters victory.
The 35-year-old from Northern Eire has completed within the top-10 six occasions in his 10 tries to complete a slam at Augusta Nationwide, together with a runner-up effort in 2022.
However this yr, McIlroy arrives at Magnolia Lane off victories at Pebble Seashore in February and The Gamers Championship in March — the primary yr he has come to the Masters with two titles already received.
“Going ahead, it’s nearly feeling as comfy as I could be with the issues I’ve been engaged on, which is form of iron play, wedges,” McIlroy stated.
“Clearly brief recreation is admittedly necessary round Augusta.” McIlroy, who final month joined Woods as gamers with $100 million in profession PGA Tour winnings, has been pleased with his capacity to deal with shotmaking in blustery situations corresponding to these discovered among the many Georgia pines.
“I feel simply how I handle my recreation, how I handle my misses. My brief recreation has been excellent and I’ve been capable of scramble nicely once I’ve wanted to,” McIlroy stated.
“And my capacity to form of hit little knockdown photographs… my capacity to hit these little three-quarter photographs is certainly higher than it has been.”
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– ‘I’m going to win a significant’ –
The PGA-LIV cut up continues, with the majors the one place the place the very best from every sequence compete.
Amongst 12 LIV Golf gamers within the Masters is Chile’s Joaquin Niemann, a particular invitee who received LIV titles at Adelaide in February and Singapore in March as he chases a primary main win.
“I do know it’s going to come back. I do know I’m going to win a significant,” Niemann stated. “I do know it’s going to occur. Possibly not on the Masters… perhaps sure. I do not know. I simply comprehend it’s going to occur.”
Different LIV gamers at Augusta embody reigning US Open champion Bryson DeChambeau, five-time main winner Brooks Koepka and previous Masters winners Jon Rahm and Sergio Garcia of Spain, South African Charl Schwartzel and People Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Patrick Reed and Bubba Watson.
Additionally enjoying this week is 2009 Masters winner Angel Cabrera, in his first main because the 2019 Masters. The 55-year-old Argentine spent 30 months in jail for home violence from 2021-2023 however was accepted to play PGA Tour-sanctioned occasions in 2023 and received final week’s PGA Tour Champions James Hardie Professional Soccer Corridor of Fame Invitational.
Vijay Singh, the 62-year-old Fijian who received the 2000 Masters, withdrew from this week’s occasion with an undisclosed harm. He had performed in each Masters since his 1994 debut.
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– Two-time champ Langer to make Masters farewell –
Two-time champion Bernhard Langer of Germany is making ready for an emotional farewell when he tees it up in his forty first and remaining Masters at Augusta Nationwide on Thursday.
“You possibly can inform already my voice is breaking a bit simply realizing it’s going to be my final aggressive Masters,” the 67-year-old stated Monday, as he spoke to reporters and watched a protracted with a video of his event highlights ready by Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership.
“After 4 many years, it’s going to be bittersweet.” Langer had deliberate to make final yr his remaining look however as a substitute discovered himself recovering from a torn Achilles tendon.
He admits that simply strolling Augusta Nationwide, whose famed azaleas and blooming dogwoods camouflage deceptively rugged terrain, will probably be a problem, and it has been a very long time since he has had the size to actually assault the course.
“The course is simply getting too lengthy and I’m getting shorter and shorter and I’m hitting hybrids the place different children are hitting nine-irons and eight-irons, perhaps even wedges.
“So I knew I wasn’t going to be in rivalry anymore,” he stated. “Just a few years again I requested the chairman of the membership, ‘Is there a time restrict? Can we age out once we’re 60? Or what’s it?’ He stated, ‘No, you’ll know when it’s time to stop. It’s completely as much as you.’ “It’s time to stop. I’m simply not aggressive on this course anymore.” However this week, Langer will have fun his unlikely historical past at Augusta, the place in 1982 he grew to become the primary German to play he Masters.
Simply getting there was an nearly unimaginable journey for a boy from a small village in a rustic the place skilled golf “was nothing”.
Langer didn’t simply make to Augusta, he triumphed there, profitable the primary of his two titles in 1985 when Spanish nice Seve Ballesteros, Raymond Floyd and Curtis Unusual tied for second.
In 1993, an eagle on the thirteenth and a birdie at fifteenth on Sunday carried him to a four-stroke victory over Chip Beck.
“The thirteenth gap, I’ve made eagle there on Saturday in ‘85 to get into rivalry and I made eagle on Sunday in ‘93 to win,” Langer stated. “In order that has grow to be certainly one of my favourite holes, not simply because I made eagles however simply the great thing about the outlet and what it calls for from you.”
– No ensures –
Whether or not the recollections will come effervescent up there or elsewhere stays to be seen, Langer stated.
“Hopefully I can management myself till the 18th, however there’s no ensures,” he stated.
“Often I’m fairly good compartmentalizing, so once I’m contained in the ropes, my thoughts switches to being a competitor.” That capacity has helped Langer amass 42 DP World Tour titles and, since he turned 50, 47 victories on the Champions Tour in the USA.
Langer, who was the primary man to be put in as world primary, has already made his farewell to the European tour with a remaining look on the BMW Worldwide Open final yr.
However, he says, there’s one thing particular about saying goodbye to the Masters. “I feel I can say this for each champion,” he stated. “We’re extraordinarily proud to be carrying the inexperienced jacket and representing the Masters all around the world.”
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– Woods groups with Augusta Nationwide on target design, college venture –
5-time Masters champion Tiger Woods will companion with Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership on a municipal golf course design venture and a brand new TGR Studying Lab college within the event’s residence city, Augusta Nationwide chairman Fred Ridley stated Monday.
With the 89th version of the Masters set to tee off at Augusta Nationwide on Thursday, Ridley introduced that the membership’s renovation of Augusta Municipal Golf Course — recognized domestically as The Patch — would come with a nine-hole par-three course designed by Woods and his course structure agency TGR Design.
The membership can even companion with Woods’s charitable basis to create a TGR Studying Lab college in Augusta, which would be the fourth such facility launched by Woods geared toward offering entry to science, expertise, engineering, arts and arithmetic schooling for college students in under-resourced communities.
Woods opened the primary Studying Lab in Anaheim, California, in 2006 and the second college opened in Philadelphia this yr.
One other is slated to open in Los Angeles in 2026 and the Augusta facility is predicted to open in 2028.
Ridley stated the partnership advanced after a dialogue with Woods about The Patch venture throughout a spherical of golf.
“I don’t know if it was a lightbulb second, however I occurred to be enjoying golf with Tiger a few yr in the past, a pair weeks earlier than the Masters, and I assumed I’d point out The Patch Challenge, which I feel we had been formally asserting that week on the event,” Ridley stated.
“It was clear once I shared the idea that it form of piqued his curiosity, and that was form of the start of a dialog, a dialogue that occurred between our organizations, and after that just a few conferences occurred, and the concept simply form of grew from what we had been doing to how Tiger and TGR may very well be concerned.
“He then form of moved into discussing the large concept of the TGR Studying Lab, which to me is simply very thrilling.” Ridley stated the brief course that Woods will design will probably be referred to as The Loop at The Patch in a nod to “caddies who’ve used the course as a gathering spot for many years.”
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– Damage setback –
Whereas Augusta Nationwide has a grow to be a byword for exclusivity, Ridley stated the membership is decided that the renovated municipal course, together with The Loop, will stay reasonably priced and accessible to native golfers.
Woods’s position in that venture and in bringing the Studying Lab to Augusta is a means of “deepening Tiger’s legacy in Augusta and with the Masters,” Ridley stated.
Woods himself didn’t attend the announcement as initially supposed. The 15-time main champion revealed in March that he had undergone surgical procedure to restore a ruptured left Achilles tendon.
The harm derailed the 49-year-old celebrity’s newest bid to return from harm. He hasn’t teed it up in a event because the Open Championship final July and had again surgical procedure in September.
He had deliberate to play within the Genesis Invitational in February, however withdrew within the wake of his mom’s dying.
Woods has nonetheless remained a presence within the recreation. He hosted his World Problem in December, performed alongside his son, Charlie, within the PNC household event that month and has seen TGL, the simulator league he launched with Rory McIlroy, get off the bottom this yr.