Xander Schauffele’s 2025 season has been anything but the dream campaign he had in 2024, but he’s finally trying to get his game off the ground.
Schauffele missed over two months with a rib injury after a T-30 finish at The Sentry in early January, holding him out of key events such as the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and The Genesis Invitational.
Now, Schauffele is trying to get up to speed before The Masters in less than a month’s time, but things aren’t going as smoothly as he would hope.
In his second round at The PLAYERS Championship, Schauffele was able to grind out a 71 to get into the clubhouse right near the current projected cut line at 1-under par.
Even though it appears he did enough to make the weekend, Schauffele is not pleased with where his game is at.
“Really bad. Yeah. Yeah, just not very good,” Schauffele said about his level of play after the round.
Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images
He later went into more detail about what’s not going right.
“Yeah. Not hitting it close enough, to duffing chips, to missing every fairway, to hitting fairways to missing greens,” Schauffele said. “It’s pretty gross, to be completely honest. So if I can eke out this cut, that would be nice. But the game feels pretty bad.”
The two-time major champion in 2024 still was able to find that clutch gene when he needed it. Sitting at even par on his final hole, Schauffele made a crucial birdie to dramatically increase his chances of making the cut.
Even though he isn’t playing his best, getting two more tournament rounds in on Saturday and Sunday are very important for Schauffele as he looks to round into form. If he does end up playing the weekend, this will mark his 59th consecutive cut made on tour.
That is the longest streak since prime Tiger Woods nearly 20 years ago.
Schauffele sits at 1-under after an even par showing on Thursday, capped by a double bogey on the 18th. His second round started with a pair of birdies on the back nine after a 10th-tee start, but bogeys on Nos. 3 and 7 brought him back to even par before his closing birdie.
Schauffele returned from injury at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, where he narrowly made the cut and finished T-40.
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