Xander Schauffele Finds Getting Back to Form ‘Harder Than I Thought’

The world No. 3 is trying to play his way back from an injury layoff and hasn’t met his high expectations, though he is off to a respectable start at the Valspar Championship.

Xander Schauffele is continuing to maintain a notable streak while playing his way back from a rib injury. / Jeff Swinger-Imagn Images

PALM HARBOR, Fla. — There are no injury rehabilitation starts in professional golf. No place to go hone your skills, work on your game and face competition at the same time. When it’s time to come back, to the PGA Tour in particular, you are thrown right back into the same intensity you left.

And so Xander Schauffele is going through some things right now.

The third-ranked player in the Official World Golf Ranking who won the PGA Championship and the British Open in a breakout 2024 is struggling through a return to competition after a two-month break to deal with a rib injury.

Coming off a final-round 81 Sunday at the Players Championship, Schauffele opened the Valspar Championship with a respectable 1-under-par 70 on the Copperhead at Innisbrook on Thursday.

But it came with some of the frustrations he’s faced since returning two weeks ago at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

“It’s harder than I thought,” Schauffele said of trying to regain his form. “I didn’t think it was going to be this tricky. Maybe I’m being a little impatient, it’s been two weeks of tournament golf for me, coming off of pretty much zero golf.

“I played Sentry and then before that was the Zozo (Championship in Japan in October), so the layoff felt more than just that six weeks, it feels like I haven’t golfed in quite some time. I have expectations and I think my team has expectations and just try to be professional through and through. But that includes shooting better scores.”

Schauffele hit just 5 of 14 fairways Thursday, a number that is going to be difficult to overcome. He still managed to hit 12 of 18 greens, making three bogeys and four birdies.

Still, the 70 is his second-best score since coming back. At Bay Hill two weeks ago, Schauffele had rounds of 77 and 75. After making the cut on the number last week at the Players, Schauffele described his golf as “really bad” and “it’s pretty gross, to be honest.”

And that was before his 77-81 weekend.

Still, he made the cut for the 59th consecutive time dating to the 2022 Masters, the longest streak on the PGA Tour and the longest since Steve Stricker got to 49 in a row in 2012. Schauffele’s is the sixth-longest streak in PGA Tour history, the record of 142 held by Tiger Woods.

Dow Finsterwald is fifth on the list with 72 in a row.

Nonetheless, Schauffele is understandably a bit antsy. The Masters is only three weeks away. He won the last major championship played. Had he not been injured, it’s quite likely he’d be trending toward a big week at Augusta National.

But in his three starts, he’s finished tied for 30th, tied for 40th and 72nd. And it’s possible this could be his last tournament start prior to the Masters.

“This is my first sort of injury I've ever dealt with,” he said. “Everyone that I've talked to that was hurt sort of says ease your way back in, you can hurt yourself again. Those kind of things. So everyone’s telling me to be patient.

“I think in assessment you can be as hard as you want. When I’m playing out there my expectations aren’t through the roof, I don’t think. I’m pretty happy with a drive that’s in the fairway right now, and I’m pretty happy when I hit a good cut or good draw. But when you’re assessing yourself I think it’s important, if you want to elevate your game, to be harsh.

“It’s easy to be biased and think you're doing O.K. So, yeah, that’s kind of where that maybe what seems to be a harsh assessment came from.”

It was put to Schauffele that there was no way to get back to form without playing tournament golf. There’s only so much practice one can do. And he played just a full 18-hole round before teeing it up at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Even if he had wanted to, Schauffele would not have been permitted to play any Korn Ferry Tour events—the developmental circuit—to get ready. Unless he was on what’s called a medical extension, that is not allowed; a player can’t drop down from an event for which he is eligible.

Not that Schauffele believes that would have helped.

“Yeah, I mean, based on how I played I think I would have gotten my butt kicked over there, too,” he said. “So it's fine. Sometimes you just got to show up and see what you got and I've been doing that.”