Among the many paths to winning golf majors, there’s the one where the mastery looks just about spotless, and that’s the one Xander Schauffele took to his deeply calm win at the 152nd British Open. It’s not just that his final-round 65 and his back-nine 31 stood as the best numbers of the 80 players at Royal Troon or that they provided a two-shot win at 9 under par after he started one shot back. It’s how it looked and felt, and it looked and felt like something even the imagination wouldn’t dare entertain. Schauffele wound up disconnected from a bunched leader board, from his bygone image as a chronic contender who couldn’t quite reign and from all known reasonable limitations going forward.
Xander Schauffele is back on top!
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Xander Schauffele shouts his versatility by soaring above at the British Open
Calling Sunday’s finale the “best round I’ve played,” Schauffele prevailed by two strokes at Royal Troon to add a second title to his PGA Championship crown.
TROON, Scotland — On a course adjacent to an airport, a 30-year-old golfer from San Diego seemed to leave the ground Sunday and commence gliding above as if oblivious to the fray below. His back nine, so artful and tranquil, felt almost as if he had used the runway just behind No. 10 to start floating overhead like one of those lazy-day planes, the engine barely audible but its hum clearly untouchable. In a callous sport with a furious week of weather, the clear winner wound up looking downright pristine.
“A wonderful next 10 years,” his father and first coach, Stefan, predicted without committing hubris or nonsense.
The hard facts said Xander Schauffele, who couldn’t snare any of his first 27 tries at majors despite 12 top-10 finishes, went and snared two of the past three. They said he became the first male player since Brooks Koepka in 2018 to win two majors in one season and the first since Rory McIlroy in 2014 to win the PGA Championship and the British Open. They said he joined with a dizzying haste those in this era with two major titles — from No. 1 Scottie Scheffler to Jon Rahm to Collin Morikawa to Bryson DeChambeau to Justin Thomas, among others — but, better than that, he has joined players such as Morikawa and Zach Johnson among those whose two major titles include one here on the links, shouting his versatility.