"I fed off of a lot of my holes"- Xander Schauffele earns redemption after quadruple bogey disaster, finishes day 2 on strong note
Xander Schauffele's first round at the 2024 ZOZO Championship was marked by a quadruple bogey on the 9th hole. However, he regained much of the lost ground with a bogey-free second round that included five birdies.
At the end of his second round performance, the 31-year-old called it "pretty solid". Here is part of what he had to say (via Playing Through):
"It was better [than yesterday]. I mean, besides one hole yesterday, I fed off of a lot of my holes and I probably hit the ball a little bit better [on Friday]. Missed some makeable putts and made some ones I shouldn’t make, so all in all it was a pretty solid day."
Schauffele's quadruple bogey in the first round came when he sent his tee shot into the trees left of the fairway. The ball came to rest in the roots of a tree, from where he tried two shots to get it out. When he was unable to do it, he decided to take a free drop as it was an unplayable ball.
The 2024 edition of the ZOZO Championship is the two-time major winner's sixth appearance at the event. He has two top-10 finishes in five previous appearances and his best result was a tie for 9th in 2023.
A look at Xander Schauffele's second round at the ZOZO Championship
Xander Schauffele played the second round of the ZOZO Championship from the 10th tee. He birdied his first hole, then birdied the 4th and 7th with no bogeys. From the 8th, he parred seven holes in a row.
He then birdied the 15th and the 16th. He closed with par on the last two holes for a round of 5-under 65.
That left him at 2-under for the tournament, moving him up 28 places on the leaderboard and into a share of 42nd place. He is 10 shots off the lead but only five shots off the top 10.
The ZOZO Championship is the California native's first event since he ended the regular season in August with a T4 finish at the Tour Championship. The world number two finished the season with three consecutive top-five finishes in the three FedEx Cup playoff events.
Schauffele has not finished outside the top 20 since April's Zurich Classic of New Orleans. The last time he finished outside the top 30 was in February (AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am).
As for his last missed cut, you have to go back to April 2022, when he missed the cut at The Masters. Since then, Schauffele has gone on a streak of 65 tournaments without missing the cut. That stretch includes five victories, two of them at major championships.