World No. 2 Xander Schauffele’s opening day at the Zozo Championship, for the most part, was a normal, drama-free round of tournament golf. As Schauffele said afterward, “Like 85 percent of the day was not very stressful.” Unfortunately, that other 15% turned a solid score into an ugly one.
And it all revolved around one of the worst lies you will ever see on a golf course.
After starting his day with eight-straight pars, Schauffele lost his tee shot on the long, par-4 9th hole into a grove of trees to the left of the fairway. Immediately, he had to worry about trees blocking his path to the green on his approach. But when he arrived at his ball, he found a worse situation than he could have imagined.
His ball was not just blocked by a tree, but it was embedded in between two roots at the base of a tree, with the ball barely peeking above pine straw and dirt.
To most golfers eyes, it appeared Schauffele’s lie was an impossible one, and there was no option but to follow Rule 19 and take relief from an unplayable lie along with a penalty stroke. But Schauffele saw things differently, and it ended up costing him big.
Schauffele pulled a wedge and set up to his ball, directly facing into the tree, to try and hack it out and avoid the penalty stroke. He made his first swing and his wedge smacked into the tree trunk. His ball? It barely moved. Unsatisfied, Schauffele reloaded and immediately tried again, and this time he appeared to miss the ball entirely, taking a divot next to his ball.
As he set up for a third attempt, his caddie Austin Kaiser had finally had enough and stopped him.
“I mean, already the damage is done, but you can’t keep hitting it right there,” Kaiser told his player, causing Schauffele to break out laughing.
He then told his playing partners to go ahead and play, because he would finally be taking an unplayable.
Rather than double down on his decision, Schauffele admitted his big mistake while talking to reporters after his round.
“No. 9 just, it was an incredible spot. I wanted to take a photo of it almost, how bad it was. For me to think I can do anything definitely got me in a hole there,” Schauffele explained, “I should have just taken an unplayable, but I was an idiot and tried to hit it. Then I was stubborn and then tried to hit it again, then finally took an unplayable. I was going to hit it a third time too just because, but yeah, it was a bad spot.”
But he also revealed that he would use the incident as a learning experience for the future.
“I mean, definitely I think having false confidence helps at times and in those spots it really doesn’t,” Schuaffele said. “So I’ll definitely try to assess it a little bit better next time and really think if I can get it out or not.”
After taking his drop and taking the penalty, Schauffele hit his fifth shot a little over a hundred yards up the hole, but crucially in the fairway.
His sixth shot found the green, and following a standard two-putt, Schauffele scribbled down a four-over 8 for the hole, affectionately known to hackers everywhere as a snowman.
Fortunately for Schauffele, he has three full rounds left to play to recover from his major miscue. But he has a ton of catching up to do. He already trails first-round leader Taylor Moore by 10 shots.
