[PHOTO: Brendan Moran]
Even though Xander Schauffele, the defending Olympic gold medallist after his victory three years ago in Japan, doesn’t feel like the defending champion, he just played like it.
Schauffele, who admitted to scuffing it around on the first three holes (“I skanked an iron on one, skanked another on two, pulled a drive on three”), finished the first round just two strokes behind Hideki Matsuyama’s opening 63 and in outright second. While he was familiar with Le Golf National from watching the Ryder Cup there in 2018, and had played three days of practice rounds, what he saw to open competitive play was an unexpected inspiration. The estimated 20,000 fans were quite the attitude adjustment.
“Wow, what a venue, just the way everything sits and the way the course was designed with the moguls and mounds and everyone can see,” he said. “It’s kind of a scene, to be honest. Just getting across the bleachers to the first tee was amazing. Everyone starts chanting. It was loud. And then it got really quiet before everyone teed off.
“I had Matthieu Pavon behind me. They were chanting his name. They’re saying, ‘Allez les Bleus!’ They were making it an awesome experience.”
Schauffele began the day with a chip-in birdie on the first hole, followed by an up and down on the par-3 second. He recovered from that missed tee shot on the par-5 third to get up and down for his second birdie.
“It wasn’t sort of the dream, stripey start that you envision as a golfer,” he said. “But I’m happy to get away with what could have been worse.”
The winner of two of the year’s past three majors added five birdies to that two-under start before dropping a stroke on the long par-4 17th. It was the 17th time this year Schauffele shot 65 or better, the most recent being the final-round 65 that won him his second major at the Open Championship at Royal Troon. Asked if this was a continuation of that, Schauffele didn’t hesitate: “Not really.”
He also made it clear he didn’t really feel like the defending champion.
“I feel I’m so far removed that you really don’t feel it,” he said. “For me, Tokyo was really special, obviously, but there were no fans. The city was closed. I was stuck in my hotel room. Here, I’m going out to eat dinner, seeing people everywhere, seeing fans everywhere chanting. It feels like I’m here for the first time.”
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Like several golfers have indicated in the run-up to the first round, this version of the Olympics has brought the other athletes in other sports and their excellence more into focus. Schauffele watched a night of the swimming earlier in the week, and it seemed to have really hit home.
“Just the appreciation [for what they go through], even on like the 100 metres. You see these people gear up. I started to feel that they go four years for this, what, 55 seconds? The pressure of that.”
Schauffele seemed thankful that he’s got another 54 holes to make the most of his second appearance in the Olympics, and potential back-to-back gold. Unlike an Olympic swimmer, golf’s pace gives him a little breathing room, especially on a golf course that was full of red numbers.
“It’s there for the taking, if you’re hitting in the fairway,” he said. “But you can make a mess of it pretty easily. The best thing [I did] was getting over my kind of clanky start. Righting the ship and using some old experience and calmness to get back on track and hit some better shots coming in.
“Other than that, it was just another day.”
Just what you’d expect a defending champion to say.
