– Said Xander Schauffele a few hours before starting the Valspar Championship that he was lacking repetitions. His first round at the Copperhead course in Innisbrook (Tampa) is a good testament to that. He is not in full control. He started with some accuracy from the tee, but as soon as the wind picked up and started blowing hard, he struggled immensely. He lacks consistency, hence the need, he says, to hit more balls. He hit five fairways, a torture on a course with thick rough and small greens.
– In his last four holes, from 5 to 9, he could have easily ended up with a score of +4 or +5. Not only did he miss fairways, but he also got into some tricky situations. On the 5th, a par 5, he almost lost the ball, on the 6th it got deeply buried in the rough, nesting, threatening, on the 7th more rough, more buried, the 8th is a par 3 (and he didn’t hit the green either, missing the shot by half a basketball court) and on the 9th more of the same, tall grass and the ball out of sight. Well, the World Number 3 came out of this with a one-under-par score. Don’t look for an explanation. It’s about having a lot of quality around the green and courage the size of the Rocky Mountains.
– Schauffele managed a more than remarkable round of -1 in the Valspar debut. The game is still hanging by a thread, but while he returns to his best form after the rib injury, he fights like a mammoth if necessary to stay on his feet, to give himself chances and, of course, to keep that impressive streak of consecutive cuts made intact. We’ll see about that tomorrow, but he’s put himself in a good position.
– Schauffele is just three strokes behind the leaders, Jacob Bridgeman (-4), Stephan Jaeger (-4), and Keith Mitchell (-4). If someone had told the first one after his second hole of the day that he would finish with that score, he would have shed tears. He started with two bogeys and without hitting a clean shot. And the wind hadn’t even picked up yet. Meanwhile, if someone had told Mitchell with three holes to go that he would finish with -4, he wouldn’t have believed it. He was at -6, playing like clockwork, hitting almost all the fairways and practically all the greens, working magic with the wind. But he finished with a cruel three-putt for bogey on the 8th and very bad luck on the 9th. His second shot wasn’t bad, on the edge of the green, but the ball ended up in a terrible spot. This course catches you when you least expect it, especially with such challenging conditions as they had in the second part of their round. By the way, Luke Donald played with Mitchell, scoring +4.
– One stroke off the lead are Ryan Fox (-3) and Nico Echavarría (-3). In a way, you could say Fox gave away the lead. He finished with two excellent birdie chances on the 17th and 18th, less than three metres, and ended with a +1. Par on the first and three putts on the second. Painful.
– There won’t even be 20 players from the morning finishing under par, and we insist that the conditions at the start were good. If the afternoon continues with the same strong winds as the end of the morning, don’t be surprised if the number of players under par in the second shift can be counted on one hand. We’ll see.
– Among the morning blowouts, Kurt Kitayama (+9), missing in action lately, Thriston Lawrence (+7), or Jhonattan Vegas (+7) stand out. A poor start also for Rasmus Hojgaard, Matt Kuchar, or Neal Shipley. Among those under par, on the other hand, are players like Nicolai Hojgaard (-1), Sepp Straka (-1), or Billy Horschel (-2).
