Four Mindset Tricks I Learned From Interviewing Xander Schauffele 

I’ve been fortunate to interview Xander Schauffele about a dozen times since he’s turned pro.
What I’ve noticed about him—similar to other experts in a given craft—is that he’ll share certain golf tips very matter-of-factly, like it’s nothing special. However, when you go back and listen, there’s so much to learn from these truth bombs.

Who cares if he didn’t deliver his thoughts as animatedly as Billy Horschel? Schauffele still shares important tips he’s learned from experience—and that’s something we can all learn from.

Here are four one-liners and concepts Schauffele shared that I believe can help us hackers at home.

1. Don’t put stock into your range warmup

He says amateurs often overthink a lot of decisions and he’s keen on not letting the mind think the tone set on the range carries over much, if at all, to the actual course.

“Honestly, I’ve played some of my best golf shanking it on the range. It’s nice to see good shots on the range but, for the most part, it doesn’t really matter.”

Refreshing to hear, isn’t it? Our day shouldn’t be defined by the 10-25 shots we hit before our round.

“As long as you’re getting stretched out and getting your body warm and working through your bag, that’s what really matters,” Schauffele says. “The warm-up is really more of a routine thing than anything else. For me, that’s what I look for.”

So let’s look at our warm-ups as a routine and then move on to the round.

2. Quickly own your shot instead of blaming outside variables

How many golf buddies do we know who, as soon as they step out of the car, are a victim?

Missed putts from short range are not their mistake; they can’t be. It’s always something or someone else’s fault, never their own.

I’ve found in talking Schauffele that it helps your overall mentality and attitude to immediately own missed chances—and then move on.

The best example of this came in 2018 at the Open Championship.

Schauffele had a close call that week (T2) after playing in the final group on Sunday at Carnoustie.

He began that Sunday with a 4-over 40 on the first nine, which seemed to take him out of contention. But when we talked about that round a few weeks later at the PGA Championship, he said he didn’t blame outside factors. The amazing part is the then-24-year-old rallied on that back nine at the Open Championship and had an eagle putt for the outright lead on 14. He lipped out the 25-footer. Yes, he muttered and shook his head and talked it out with his caddie. But by the time he was on the 15th tee he was all business and found the fairway with his tee shot. The whole time he exuded positive body language, shoulders back as he headed down the fairway.

Schauffele recalled that missed putt with me three weeks later. I said I couldn’t believe it didn’t go in. He said in the moment he felt it had a chance, but when it didn’t drop, he knew he had to move on. He hit the putt he wanted to—“It just didn’t go in. They lip out sometimes.” This acceptance taught me that it does us no good to blame outside factors like green speeds or break. Some of my golfing friends use that as a coping mechanism to make themselves feel better. We’ve all been there.

In fact, one of the hardest things in golf is to be honest with ourselves and say, “I hit a bad putt.” But owning a mistake is critical to learning for the next time we’re in that situation. If we accept that we are the one who pushed the putt to the right, then we can make the honest adjustment to our stroke two holes later. At least we’ll stand a fighting chance to actually make those adjustments if it was an operator error.

3. Write down your strengths and weaknesses (as detailed as possible)

Understanding strengths and weaknesses sounds good in theory, right? Play our best golf and shoot our best possible scores by catering to our strengths while limiting exposure to weaknesses.

But what does that actually look like for us?

Schauffele made this clear during a podcast we did in 2020, saying that if we write down everything we’re good at, and write down everything we’re bad at, then we’ll have more clarity when we make critical club selection choices. We can identify what club to choose based on the information we’ve studied about our game.

Writing it down with as much detail as possible makes it more tangible rather than a vague idea like, “I’m inconsistent with my driver.”

A better example would be more specific feedback like, “I tend to miss drives to the right when I’m feeling nervous” or “I have great distance control with my gap wedge from 110-120 yards.”

Those pieces of written information help create a better visual in our heads for how to formulate a game plan.

I sometimes take four or five clubs when my playing partner drops me off for my approach shot. Wind, lie, trees, water, distance—there’s so much to factor in and so little room for error. But committing to writing down what I’m good at lets me know more quickly that 8-iron is my most comfortable and consistent club, so that helps this over-thinker as I stand with four clubs in my hand, trying to keep a good round from falling off the rails. And for me, that’s keeping a bogey round of golf from hitting the high 90s.

Knowing what you are comfortable with is critical to becoming a better player.

If you need to hit a shot perfectly to carry trouble in front of the green, Schauffele says, the miss will likely be in the trouble. His recommendation is to take a club where the miss will be away from the trouble.

He calls it the boring and plain option but if we really want to improve our scores, that’s the best way to eliminate the big number.

4. Get comfortable with lag putts on the practice green

Schauffele says one of the most common mistakes by amateurs is when they aren’t comfortable with their lag putting speeds to start their rounds. The world No. 2 says amateurs get frustrated by this and it affects the rest of their game that day. Been there before? I have. And once you get started, it’s not easy to make adjustments on your putting stroke.

“Because their speed is off, they’ll keep having stressful 4, 5-foot comebackers on each hole,” Schauffele says.

A lot of us throw a few balls down and hit a few 10-footers before getting to the first tee but that isn’t going to help as much when it comes to managing speed. So let’s take a page from Schauffele’s playbook and spend the time we need for our sanity on longer lag putts before we play.

What else would you want to know about Schauffele and how he plays the game? Let me know below in the comments.

Top Photo Caption: Xander Schauffele has ascended to superstar status after winning two majors this year. (GETTY IMAGES/Kevin C. Cox)

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