US golfer Xander Schauffele has opened up about a “negative picture” being painted of golf by the media. The Open Championship winner was at a press conference ahead of the 2024 BMW Championship when he shared his opinion.
Professional circuits in golf offer enviable prize money to their competitors. Over the years, the prize purses in golf have increased. A lot of credit for this can be given to the launch of LIV Golf and the subsequent threat posed by it to the PGA Tour.
The BMW Championship, for example, has a purse of $20,000,000 and the winner’s share will be $3,600,000. Xander Schauffele was asked by a reporter during the press conference whether that sort of money is still an attraction in an era with purses of around $25 million. Schauffele said:
“The media has been an interesting thing to me the last two or three years. There’s a reason behind inflated purses and a lot of people have been talking about money. The news that I do read, it’s funny, it’s really negative. It’s painted really negatively in golf, which is fine. I think people like to hate on anything these days.”
He added that whenever athletes in other sports receive big cash prizes, everyone commends that, as opposed to for golf.
“When I look at other sports, when someone gets a $300 million contract, there’s all these positive comments about how someone got their bag or they’ve worked so hard to get this and they deserve it, things like that. It’s interesting to me. I think maybe golf is a gentlemen’s game and you’re not supposed to talk about money, but all the media wants to do is talk about money.”
Xander Schauffele also said that the golfers who are making the most money don’t actually think about the lucrative value of the sport.
Schauffele said that football stars, due to TV, are earning a lot more money than golfers. He used the example of Scottie Scheffler, who is currently enjoying one of the best seasons of his career with multiple wins under his belt. He has earned north of $29 million in cumultive prize money through these wins.
According to Sportstar, Xander Schauffele said:
“You look at the No. 1 quarterback, he’s getting $60 million and then the No. 10 quarterback is getting 52, and then No. 15 is getting 39 or 40. So it’s like, obviously there’s way more money in football with TV and everything that’s surrounding it. It’s hard to compare the one-v-one because Scottie has just been that much more elite, and I think he deserves everything that he’s getting.”
The 2024 BMW Championship is the penultimate event in the FedEx Cup Playoffs. It will tee off on August 22, 2024. The top 30 golfers will qualify for the Tour Championship. The winner of that tournament will take home the FedEx Cup title.
Currently, Xander Schauffele is second in FedEx Cup points behind Scheffler. He finished T2 behind Hideki Matsuyama at the St. Jude Championship in the first round of the Playoffs.
“Becoming No. 1 in the world? It’s a very big goal of mine” – Xander Schauffele
Xander Schauffele (Source: Imagn)
Xander Schauffele and Scottie Scheffler have had a great run in 2024. Both of them have won major titles and consistently delivered great performance on the PGA Tour.
Scheffler won the gold medal at the Paris Olympics, and also holds the lead in the OWGR and the FedEx Cup points table, while Schauffele ranks second. But that doesn’t mean the latter doesn’t have ambitions of becoming the world no. 1.
“Becoming No. 1 in the world? It’s a very big goal of mine, yes. And I’ve been told, yes, that Scottie is an outlier in several years, and I would be (No. 1). But it’s not really good enough, is it?”
In any other era of golf, Schauffele’s performances this year would have catapulted him straight to the top ranking in men’s golf. But Scheffler’s extraordinary performances have kept him in the lead. Regardless, Schauffele is still proud of his accomplishments this season.
“That doesn’t take away from what I’ve done or how I feel. I’m proud with the work that I’ve put in and with the people that are around me and that have helped me. I’m just going to keep knocking. That’s what I do.”
Xander Schauffele was also all full of praise for Scottie Scheffler.
“He’s been playing unbelievable golf. I feel like we’re all just chasing him. I’ve done probably the best job of getting the closest to him, but it’s still very far away. Just a lot of credit to him and his team for putting together a really special year.”
He also said that he got to know Scheffler, his caddy Ted Scott, and wife Meredith Scudder a little better during their Olympic campaign in Paris. He added:
“I mean, he’s genuinely just really nice. He’s a really good dude. He’s not afraid to poke at people and laugh and have a good time. He’s definitely hyper competitive. But at the end of the day, he really is a rock-solid guy. There’s honestly nothing I can say to knock on him.”
He said of competing against Scheffler:
“I feel like we kind of look at it in a similar fashion. We’re really just playing against ourselves and the golf course. The score really is just a result. Some days you play really well and shoot 69 and some days you kind of play crappy and shoot 66. So I think sticking to your process, what’s gotten us this far, is going to be important and not really getting too emotional about what’s happening around us.”
The Tour Championship at East Lake at the end of this month will be the PGA Tour’s season finale, and both Xander Schauffele and Scottie Scheffler will be firmly in contention for the FedEx Cup title.
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Edited by Tushar Bahl
