Xander Schauffele can’t believe this overlooked ‘mind-blowing’ Scottie Scheffler stat

Scottie Scheffler isn’t in the field for theWells Fargo Championship but that doesn’t mean he’s not the talk of the golf world. 

One of the players who is trying to emulate Scheffler’s success is world number four Xander Schauffele, who is in the field at Quail Hollow Club this week.

The American faced reporters on Wednesday ahead of the sixth signature PGA Tour event of the 2023-2024 season where he revealed the number one goal this week is to go one better than his runner-up finish here last year.

In an effort to improve Schauffele said he’s started working with a new physical trainer which has resulted in the golfer picking up a bit more clubhead and ball speed this year.

It was an intentional goal, he said.

But, according to Schauffele, the aforementioned Scheffler has dropped speed.

“Which is just mind-blowing,” Schauffele, 30, said.

Scheffler is absent this week given his heavily pregnant wife Meredith is due to give birth to their first child any day now.

Schauffele explained: “I mean, Scottie is an outlier in many ways currently.

“He’s actually dropped speed, which is just mind-blowing. No one hits their irons or gets up and down around the greens better than him.

“So his iron play’s elite, so he can afford to sort of drop some distance off the tee. I mean, I think he’s hitting more fairways.

“I haven’t really done too deep of a dive, I just saw that his average ball speed was down. I played with him a couple years ago and he was sending it past me, so at that time I feel like I needed to pick up some pace.

And now that he’s dropped back, he’s just doing Scottie things.

He added: “But in general if you look at the sort of top 10, 15, 20 players in the world, there’s sort of a threshold that you need to hit if you’re not sort of a crazy elite iron player or crazy scrambler or things of that nature.

“So I figured any edge I can get on the field, if it’s flying the ball 15 yards further and being able to take out a bunker on a hole that other guys can’t, that will help me over the span of a season.”

Schauffele will play the opening round of the Wells Fargo Championship alongside Shane Lowry and Wyndham Clark in the 11:22am EDT tee time.

Because of Scheffler’s absence, Rory McIlroy is the overwhelming favourite to add to his tally of PGA Tour wins.

McIlroy spoke to reporters before his opening round where he previewed his US PGA Championship tilt with a story about Phil Mickelson.