PGA Tour player blog: After the British Open, Olympic gold is next, says Xander Schauffele

I decided to take golf seriously when I was about 13 years old. And when I was maybe 15 or 16, I sat down with my dad and we started to hash out some goals and dreams of what I’d like to do in the sport.

During those times, I was on the couch with my dad a lot, watching other guys win Majors and big tournaments. We’ve definitely talked about winning The Open Championship and we’ve watched that walk up the 18th hole pretty much every year until I played in my first Open in 2017. It’s definitely something that we’ve both dreamt of.

The walk up No. 18 on Sunday truly is the coolest, with the yellow leaderboards and the fans and the standing ovation that the champion receives. It really is one of the coolest feelings I’ve ever had in my life. I got chills walking down and quickly had to zap myself back into focus because the tournament wasn’t over yet.

I made sure I walked up the final green with Austin (Kaiser, his caddie) by my side. He’s one of my best friends. I’m the one hitting the shots, but at the end of the day, it’s a team thing. I was marching, and I was just trying to focus. In my head, I was like, ‘you’re about to have your moment here and no one better to share it than Austin because he deserves it as well’.

I feel very honoured. Hearing your name called with “Open Champion” right after is something I’ve dreamt of for a very long time. I feel speechless just looking at the Claret Jug and if I sat in a room by myself with it, I would just stare at it and gaze, and really try to take it all in.

At the end of the day, it is just a result, and I really do believe that. Sometimes things go your way, and sometimes they don’t. In the final round at Troon, I felt like I really controlled a lot of it. I kind of grabbed on to the lead, and there was no chance I was going to let go of it.