Xander Schauffele is likely to extend his PGA Tour-best streak of cuts made to 59 consecutive tournaments, but the two-time major winner was blunt about the state of his game after the second round of The Players Championship on Friday.
"It's pretty gross, to be completely honest," Schauffele told reporters after carding a 1-under-par 71 at TPC Sawgrass.
Even par through the first 35 holes of the tournament, Schauffele knew he needed a birdie on his final hole of the day to have a strong chance of playing the weekend. After starting on the back nine Friday, he closed his round by two-putting from 50 1/2 feet for birdie on the par-5 ninth hole.
"I was thinking about the cut line for sure," Schauffele acknowledged. "Knew I needed to make birdie."
Schauffele returned from a six-week layoff to allow an intercostal strain in the rib cartilage on his right side to heal, and he tied for 40th at last week's Arnold Palmer Invitational. He arrived at TPC Sawgrass this week looking to work back into form with the Masters less than a month away, and Schauffele will at least have two more rounds to work on every aspect of his game.
"Not hitting it close enough, to duffing chips, to missing every fairway, to hitting fairways to missing greens," Schauffele said when asked if the issues are beyond his putting woes this week. "So if I can eke out this cut, that would be nice. But the game feels pretty bad."
Schauffele said he is supposed to restrict his practice sessions due to the ongoing recovery from the injury, but intended to "blow that out of the water" on the range Friday afternoon.
"Surprisingly it feels kind of close, which is, I know, pretty sick to say. I know a lot of guys say that, but I'll get a little bit cozier on the range and kind of get in a decent pattern, and then as soon as I get on the course it seems to get a little bit more crooked. I'm not sure if it's something setup related or something that I'm not doing or not doing on the course that I do on the range, but it feels pretty bad."
Asked if he was potentially being too hard on himself, Schauffele didn't let off the gas in his self-assessment.
"I almost missed the cut on what is a pretty easy course right now, so I don't think so," he said. "No. I think I'm being just fine on myself."