How Mental Resilience Fuels Success in Major Golf Tournaments

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00:00Like, did you feel like that you were missing any aspect to just not get over the hump?

00:12Like a technical?

00:13Was it mental?

00:15Just experience?

00:16Because you were still playing incredible dang golf during that time period.

00:20Yeah, I felt like my mentality sort of being in the dirt for such a long time, just trying

00:26to grind out each shot.

00:28Every time I miss a cut, I mean, I can comfortably say I've never mailed in a tournament, ever.

00:33It's just not in my DMA, it's just how my dad raised me.

00:38If I'm five off the cut line, I'm trying to make the cut with six holes to play.

00:42And even if I don't get there, I'm already trying to work on something for the next week

00:45because I don't want to waste any moment in a tournament setting.

00:48It's just not how I operate.

00:49So I think all those moments helped me big in the majors because every hole, the whole

00:55cliche thing about every hole is its own tournament, one shot at a time, that's such

01:01major golf.

01:02It's not even funny.

01:03That's exactly how major golf is.

01:04It's like...

01:05Situational awareness.

01:06Oh my gosh.

01:07It's insane.

01:08And so I think that really helped me early on in major.

01:10The matchup was there for me at a young age even, and then for major golf because every

01:17hole is so freaking hard.

01:19It's okay to make a double bogey sometimes.

01:20As long as you weather the storm, you can par your way in and you'll still be in 14th.

01:25It's not like a shoot-em-up, you're two over and now you're freaking 12 back.

01:29It's just a completely different mentality.

01:34And in those four years, was there a moment or a situation that you look back on where

01:39you think, man, if I just would have been a little bit more aware of how close I was

01:44and how easily Xander Schauffele now could have closed out that major championship?

01:50A little bit.

01:51I felt like you're not going to luck your way into a major, I think.

01:57You have to have all the shots.

01:59You have to be super comfortable hitting the shots under the gun.

02:03You got to make important putts.

02:05You got to hit a certain distance.

02:08I had a lot of it, but I don't think I was really...

02:11As good as I was mentally at that time, I don't think I was ready mentally either.

02:15Not picturing yourself being a major champion?

02:18Was it more that?

02:19Because I was still trying to prove myself.

02:22I didn't really know what it all meant.

02:24And I was always like, everyone's telling me, oh, you're going to win a major soon because

02:28you've been playing so well in them.

02:29And I'm like, yeah, I mean, I just feel like I'm playing my game.

02:32I don't really feel like I'm doing anything more or less.

02:34I just match up really well in the majors.

02:36And it was definitely like a...

02:39I wasn't sitting there every night trying to imagine myself holding the trophy at the

02:43age of 22.

02:44It just wasn't like...

02:45My game wasn't incredible.

02:47My short game wasn't great enough to clean up.

02:50I had to be too perfect off the tee and into the greens.

02:52I don't think I was chipping well enough to compete at a higher level.

02:57Very much a mid-high level, but not the highest level.

02:59So it was some small stuff.

03:01And so we've talked about those four years, 18 to 21.

03:04So let's talk about 22 and 23.

03:06And you look at the major records in those years, I see besides one miscut, you were

03:11between 10th place and 18th place in all of those major championships.

03:16And SK over here would have been absolutely thrilled for one of those.

03:19But I imagine after a stretch of golf that you just played the prior four years where

03:24you're in the top five, you're in contention, you have a chance to win, 10th, 18th, that's

03:28just kind of hanging out on Sunday, just trying to work your way inside the top 10.

03:33When you finished 23, was there frustration of how you performed in the major championships?

03:39And did that lead you to wanting to improve and make changes?

03:44Yeah, I was already kind of going through a little bit of a coming out of COVID.

03:50My swing was like, even from that video you sent in 17, 18, my swing was much different

03:56than it got coming out of COVID.

04:00I'm working with Chris now, and it led me to work with Chris because my swing was getting

04:05very like flat shoulders, very laid off, club was going like a different direction.

04:10I was playing a lot of these little like San Diego courses during COVID when I was

04:14living there and a lot of like low, like scared fades where you're kind of, and it wasn't

04:20doing it well.

04:21I was doing it because-

04:22Oh, I got that shot.

04:23I got that shot.

04:24Yeah, the club was laid off and I was kind of punching across it, trying to squeeze it.

04:27And then like all of a sudden it like bled into my game and I was trying to hit my wedges

04:30better because my wedges were bad.

04:32But then I started hitting my driver terrible.

04:34I mean, it's like the classic, you said it earlier, I want to get better at something

04:38and it made my entire like long game terrible.

04:41Became a really good wedge player, but it made my long game really bad.

04:44I didn't know how to marry the two.

04:45So it was definitely frustrating, but I wasn't as frustrated with my result as I was with

04:51how I felt about my game.

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