The Open Championship 2024: “One Step Closer” To Career Grand Slam

The new winner of The Open Championship 2024 is Xander Schauffele. Following his victory at the PGA Championship this year, the US American celebrates his second major win in a year. The last time Brooks Koepka achieved this was in 2018, and a double major victory including an Open triumph was ten years ago. Back then, Rory McIlroy also won the PGA Championship and the British Open in the same calendar year. There is also another major milestone: Schauffele’s triumph in Troon marks the first time since 1982 that there have been four US Major winners in one year. In the press conference afterwards, the 30-year-old answered questions from reporters and spoke about the significance of the victory.

The Open Championship 2024: “A Dream Come True To Win Two Majors In One Year”

MIKE WOODCOCK: I’m delighted to welcome the 2024 Champion Golfer of the Year Xander Schauffele to the interview room. Xander, congratulations. Tremendous performance. Can you sum up what this means to you and how it feels to hold the Claret Jug aloft?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: It’s an honour. I’ve always dreamt of doing it. That walk up 18 truly is the coolest with the yellow leaderboards and the fans and the standing ovation. 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 can’t wait to enjoy this with my family.

Q. They say winning the first major is very hard but winning the second is harder. It didn’t seem that way for you? Is this the start of millions?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: It was hard. It was very difficult. I think winning the first one helped me a lot today on the back nine. I had some feeling of calmness come through. It was very helpful on what has been one of the hardest back nines I’ve ever played in a tournament.

I mean, it’s a dream come true to win two majors in one year. It took me forever just to win one, and to have two now is something else.

Q. You mentioned your family. They weren’t really there in Valhalla quite as much in full force. I guess how did it feel to embrace it with them?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, in the end it makes it feel like it’s all worth it. My wife’s here, both my parents, my brother, and my uncle. My day ones, as I would say. They’re all here to — they haven’t enjoyed it with me yet, but tonight will be awesome.

Q. Where does that final round rank among the best rounds that you’ve ever played?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: At the very tip top. Best round I’ve played.

Q. Xander, was there a moment, looking at leaderboards, where you started to dream a little, or was it not till 18?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, after I birdied 14, I was able to hit the fairway, and there’s a big board right there on 15 by the green. I was sitting there kind of peeking at it.

I was like, if I can birdie my second par-5 of the week on 16, that would be special. Then as soon as I hit the green on 17, I had to really try and focus really hard to not let my mind wander too much.

Q. What was more fun, making a six-footer for birdie and having everyone lose their mind on the 18th or having that walk that you described? What’s the difference in the feelings you had?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: It’s very different. Different times of stress. If there’s a stress metre, I definitely peaked at different moments on the 18th hole today. The fact that it was a little bit of help and I could hit a 3-iron, 8-iron in versus driver, 4-iron, lob wedge or sand wedge or whatever it was.

There’s calmness and super stressful moments when you’re trying to win a major championship. I felt them in the past, the ones I didn’t win, and I let them get to me. Today I felt like I did a pretty good job of weathering the storm when I needed to.

Q. You made a strong point about being here for the last couple of weeks in Scotland. How important is that to you in terms of preparation for this week? We’ve had four seasons in one day at some point. Is that key to be here as early as possible to try and prepare for this?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I think so. I think it’s essential. Just the time zone itself is a big thing to overcome. Then when you move along to the fescue and the deep bunkers and the finer sand, and then you talk about the wind, and then the greens being slower, literally everything is completely different than what we do over in the States.

If you can just give yourself an extra week to try and acclimate, I think it’s a no-brainer.

Q. Just to follow up on that question, there’s a perceived wisdom that you win a major championship in America, but to win one here, an Open Championship on links, makes you a complete golfer. Do you feel now that’s true you’re a complete golfer, and what does it mean to win it in the Home of Golf?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I’m definitely going to believe that’s true because here we are.

Yeah, it’s a completely different — like we just talked about, it’s a completely different style of golf. It makes you play shots and have different ball positions. There’s so much risk/reward when the wind’s blowing 20 miles an hour and it starts raining. There’s so many different variables that come into play. It truly is an honour to win this.

To me it’s big. To me winning the Scottish Open was big because it meant my game could travel. So to double that up and win a major in Scotland is even cooler.

Q. Just related to that, your California mellowness, do people mistake that maybe there’s more fire inside than we can see?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, I like — I mean, everyone in my family knows how competitive I am. I may not be the guy running around fist pumping, but that’s just who I am. I kind of know how I need to be to perform at a high level.

The same way I don’t get really angry, I also don’t let myself get too over the moon because to me it’s the same thing. If I’m sitting there snapping a club, that would be the same as me running around fist pumping. It would take too long for me to adjust before my next shot to hit a good one. I’ve kind of embraced this sort of SoCal, laid-back kid, but there’s obviously a fire burning deep within, or you wouldn’t have a couple majors sitting by your side.

Q. You mentioned the fire in the belly and the ambition that you have. Before this season had you ever thought about completing the Career Grand Slam? If not, are you going to start thinking about it going forward?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, I mean, before I had any majors, it’s something I’ve always wanted. I’m one step closer and still have a long way to go. But if you don’t see yourself doing it, you’re never going to do it.

Q. Players that have won two majors in a season recently, like in the last decade, like Rory and Jordan and Brooks, they’re largely regarded as the best players of this generation. Would you say now that you’ve sort of cemented yourself as one of the best of this generation?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I don’t really think that way, I guess. I think the guys in the States sort of know how these pressers go. Pretty much that’s you guys’ job to speculate on those things. I’m just trying to win as many of these things as I can and play the best golf as I can and be a decent guy. So I’ll let you ponder that one.

Q. We know how close you and your dad are, but I’m wondering, do you remember the first time that you guys spoke about the possibility of you winning a major championship?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Long ago, yeah. I decided to take golf seriously when I was about, I don’t know, 13 maybe. I sat down with my dad when I was maybe 15 and 16, and we started to really hash out some goals and dreams of what I’d like to do. I was on the couch with my dad a lot watching other guys win majors and win big tournaments.

My dad and I, we’ve definitely talked about this. We’ve watched that walk up 18 pretty much every year until I’ve played in The Open. It’s definitely something that we’ve both dreamt of.

Q. Speaking of that walk up 18, I noticed that you waited for Austin to kind of make that walk with you. Why did you do that?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Pretty obvious. I mean, Austin, he’s one of my best friends, but it’s a team thing. I’m the one hitting the shots, but at the end of the day, it’s a team thing. It’s a team environment that I like to have for my team, I guess.

I was marching, and I was sitting there, and I was just trying to focus, and I sort of looked up, and I saw yellow leaderboards. In my head, I was like, you’re about to have your moment here. No one better to share it than Austin because he deserves it as well.

Q. What would you say you did best this week?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I felt like I limited the mistakes pretty well. There was one really — lucky to only have one really hard round in sort of the wind and rain, and I managed that day better than I ever thought I could, to be honest. I felt like I just controlled a lot of what I was trying to do, and the moments where I was losing control, I sort of — if I hit it offline and into the fescue, I wasn’t too worried about it because it’s links golf. It’s how you play golf out here. As long as you avoid those coffin bunkers, you can move that ball forward and get yourself back in the hole.

I think the style of golf maybe helped me mentally play this week. The style of golf you can play out here, you don’t have to be perfect or hit the prettiest drives or anything. As long as you’re moving the ball forward and dodging bunkers and keeping holes in front of you and making sure your chips are into the wind, all the stuff that us pros talk about, it’s easy to talk about, it’s harder to actually do when you’re out there.

I think Austin and I did a pretty good job of plotting around this difficult property.

Q. In the past when maybe you had some finishes that weren’t to your liking, you preached process over the results. Given the kind of jump we’ve seen from you over the past couple months, was there anything you kind of recalibrated in your approach, or was this just trusting the process you already had and it finally matching up with the results?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, it’s all part of the process. It is an incredible feeling to be up here with the Claret Jug. It is just a result at the end of the day, and I really do believe that.

Sometimes things go your way, and sometimes they don’t. When you’re playing — today I felt like I really controlled a lot of it. I kind of grabbed onto it, and there was no chance I was going to let go of it. I was pretty aware of that and really wanted to make sure I did that.

But for the most part, all those tough losses in the past or those moments where I let myself slip up and dream too early on that back nine, I was able to reel myself in today and make sure that didn’t happen.

Q. Can you just give us an insight into what the celebrations might look like tonight? Are you going to go all out like Bob MacIntyre did a week ago, or is it going to maybe be a bit more low key?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: That was an incredible, incredible win for Bob. I don’t know if I’m going to have as much of an embrace, not being Scottish, but it’s going to be — it will be low key for most, but for me, I don’t really drink a whole lot ever. I don’t really get to celebrate too many things ever. This game is cruel at times.

So I have my whole family and most of my team here. I’m just curious to see what my dad is going to pick as a first drink to drink out of this.

Q. And you know what you’re going to put inside the Claret Jug tonight?

XANDER SCHAUFFELE: My dad is — he’s not in here. There he is. He’s going to have to figure out what he wants to put in there because he’s taking the first gulp out of it.

MIKE WOODCOCK: We’ll wrap things up there. Xander, congratulations again. Champion Golfer of the Year, Xander Schauffele.