PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 14, 2026

Xander Schauffele

Aronimink Golf Club

Flash Quotes

THE MODERATOR: Xander Schauffele is with us now at the 108th PGA Championship.

Q. Did the overnight rain significantly change the course at all compared to your expectations yesterday?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I don't think significantly. I think it definitely assisted. I think just playing in the morning, a little more overcast, slightly softer fairways and slightly softer greens, maybe a little bit slower. You feel like you can be a little bit more aggressive.

Guys are hitting 320-yard drives on the 11th hole, and wedges are skipping 5 to 8 yards. So it had its tricky spots depending on how aggressive you wanted to be.

Q. Xander, talk a little bit about the fast start, because you really got out of the gates well, just --

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, it's always nervy playing in a major, so nice to get off to a good start for sure. I made three birdies in the first four holes and was feeling pretty good.

Then started to play a lot worse golf for the next six holes. Then got a little bit better again. So I got the full experience today.

Q. Do you feel like when you have that kind of a start, you know it's going to be hard, it's going to get hard somewhere, but you are playing with a little bit of a buffer. You've gotten yourself under par significantly early.

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Sure. Yeah, it's -- there's a lot of cross-wind holes. If you hit a good drive, you have a scoring club in your hand, then it's up to you and your caddie how aggressive you want to be.

I think, like you said, if you are a few under par and you are between clubs and the pin is tucked on a cliff, maybe hitting it to 25 feet isn't the worst shot in that particular moment.

Yeah, it's Thursday. You're just trying to get in a decent position and kind of feel out how you're playing.

Q. There's a lot of discussion, at least in here, about how difficult or easy the setup might be this week. Lead is at 3-under right now. Is it playing how you expected it to play compared to how it was the last couple days?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, the fairways are generous in width, but the firmer they get, the more they're going to roll off into areas. So a 35- or 40-yard wide fairway is going to start to feel like a 10-yard wide fairway, and there is no first cut either. Your ball is rolling into something that's on the muffier side of things.

I think really, really thick rough and wind and really difficult greens and tucked pin locations is why you're seeing what you may feel like are higher scores.

Q. You have been a historically great putter over your career. This year may be a little bit down from where that's been. Looked like at least statistically you had a good day. What's been kind of the key to that club, particularly today?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, it was nice to have my putting coach Derek out here for the first three days. Yeah, just tried to get some start lines and some reads back on track.

When you're playing putts, you know, 6-foot to 10-foot putts that are breaking anywhere from one cup to three feet. There's a lot of windows and speeds you can hit 'em, and you've just got to get confident and comfortable.

Q. When guys zip wedges off a green, or like on 11 bounce through, I think there's a very common phrase among people like me, like, oh, control your spin. How hard is it to control your spin maybe out here?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Well, 11's a really tough one. There's a fear of spinning it off the green, just because just short of that hole -- like, I don't know, 14 feet just short of that pin is a slope that's about, I don't know, 60 degrees. Anything that hits it is going to roll off the green. Then you have about 80 yards on your third, or 60 yards or whatever it ends up.

It's hard. It was windy. Guys were hitting 300 -- like I said, they're hitting 320-yard drives on 11 from what I saw in a short window of coverage. That means you're going to have anywhere between 80 to 100 yards to a back pin, and you're trying to land it in a tiny window.

It's not so much a spin thing as it is controlling your number and flight.

Q. If ESPN is going to pick out one shot of yours today, which one would you guess it would be? If it's different, what would you pick as your best shot of the day?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: You got me here. I have no idea.

Q. Did you have any good shots?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, I did. I did. I had some good shots. I was actually pretty happy with my putt -- ESPN would never show this, but internally I hit it over the green on 8, and I was leaking some oil, and I was able to lag that to two feet up and over and around and down with a cross-wind. So in my mind, that was a really big moment for me.