Xander Schauffele Claims Scottish Open
Former San Diego State men's golf All-American won his second straight professional tournament Sunday at the Genesis Scottish Open at The Renaissance Club.
Former San Diego State men's golf All-American Xander Schauffele won his second straight professional tournament Sunday at the Genesis Scottish Open at The Renaissance Club in North Berwick, Scotland. It was the third victory of the season for Schauffele (all since April 24), which only trails the top-ranked player in the world Scottie Scheffler's four wins, and seventh of his career.
Schauffele shot an even-par 70 in Sunday's round on the windy 7,237-yard track to beat Kurt Kitayama by a stroke at 7-under 273. Schauffele, who earlier in the week won the unofficial J.P. McManus Pro-Am on Tuesday in Ireland, fired a 2-over 72 in the week's toughest conditions on Thursday before following with a 65 on Friday and a 66 on Saturday.
Schauffele is the fifth American to win the Scottish Open, joining Michael Allen (1989), Tom Lehman (1997), Phil Mickelson (2013) and Rickie Fowler (2015). According to golf statistician Justin Ray, Schauffele is the sixth player in the last 10 seasons to enter a major coming off wins in back-to-back PGA Tour starts (The Open is next week) along with Tiger Woods (2013 entering The Masters), Rory McIlroy (2014 entering PGA Championship), Jordan Spieth (2015 entering The Open), Jason Day (2016 entering The Masters) and Dustin Johnson (2016 entering The Open). Only McIlroy followed with a major victory.
Schauffele's seven PGA Tour victories have come at the 2017 Greenbrier Classic, 2017 Tour Championship, 2018 WGC-HSBC Champions, 2019 Sentry Tournament of Champions, 2022 Zurich Classic of New Orleans, 2022 Travelers Championship and 2022 Scottish Open. Schauffele also won the gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics last summer.
An Aztec has now won four of the last 16 PGA Tour tournaments with J.J. Spaun taking down the Valero Texas Open (March 31-April 3) and Schauffele's three victories since.
A two-time PING All-West Region honoree, Schauffele received All-America recognition following a brilliant senior campaign at San Diego State in 2015, garnering third-team accolades from the both the Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA) and Golfweek.
In his three years on Montezuma Mesa, Schauffele amassed 21 top-10 finishes, 16 top-five performances and two individual titles before graduating with a degree in social science. He also owns the school record with a 71.50 career scoring average in 118 rounds played, as well as the program's single-season standard of 171 birdies set in 2014-15.
