In the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, where birdies often occur in the Four-Ball format, keeping the ball as low as possible is a strategy that is not unusual.
The fact that Friday’s event was a foursomes and not a four-ball caught Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay’s squad off guard. They obviously missed the memo, as is evident.
The pair shot a Foursomes tournament-record 9-under 63 in the second round to move from the cutline to contention after shooting a mediocre 67 during Thursday’s Four-Ball session.
Schauffele and Cantlay were level for second place at 14-under when the morning session came to an end, two strokes behind Wyndham Clark and Beau Hossler.
“Here in the other shot, we had to take bold shots , which is rather risky. It was just essential.” said Schauffele.
Fortunately, these two have a track record of hitting low at TPC Louisiana.
Since the Zurich Classic switched to a team competition in 2017, the pair currently holds the top Four-Ball, Foursomes, and overall tournament scores.
In Foursomes last year, the duo who are reigning champions shot a first-round score of 59. They eventually finished two shots ahead with an overall total of 29 under.
The club sensed a little more urgency on Friday than they did throughout their start-to-finish victory a year ago.
Both Schauffele and Cantlay had “abnormal” first rounds, by their own admission, leaving them with a lot of work to do.
In best ball, bogeys are rarely recorded, especially when two of the top five players in the world are participating and are in excellent form.
However, Schauffele and Cantlay bogeyed three holes on Thursday, tied most of the time while playing on the course, and finished their round at 1-over from the 7th tee.
In order to salvage a 5-under round and tie for 56th place, the friends exchanged a “painful laugh” before they birdied six of their next seven holes.
The Foursomes rounds are frequently seen as the deciding rounds because errors are amplified and birdies are harder to achieve. Anything less than an excellent performance was not going to be sufficient with the top of the leaderboard being so clustered. To break apart from the pack, they had a lot of work to do.
“We would have put ourselves in a fairly difficult position if we didn’t shoot anything lower than a 65 today since we both want to win this event again.” Schauffele said.
Schauffele shot the approach ball from 101 yards away on the 10th hole, which was their opening round of the day, to 13 inches for a tap-in birdie.
Cantlay went 3-under after four holes after making another birdie on the 11th par-5 and sinking a 31-foot birdie putt on the 13th par-3.
On hole 15 Cantlay hit an 18-footer to preserve par, and on hole 16’s par-4 they recorded their fourth birdie of the day.
On the 18th par-5, where Schauffele landed his 261-yard approach shot at 14 feet, Cantlay made the putt to seal the victory with an eagle.
The weather seemed to be the only factor that made them advance more slowly. Before play was stopped due to bad weather, the pair added three additional birdies through the opening five holes of their back nine. The pair finished their round with three pars after a two hours, 32 minute delay.
It’s hard to not wonder what would have happened without the rain.
Concerning this, Schaufelle said “Before that pause, our flow was really excellent. So nobody is aware of what might have transpired.”
With sunny skies predicted for the weekend, weather shouldn’t be a concern for the remainder of the week. The only obvious problem is that there are no more records for them to break except their own. They are not bothered about this.
“We would like to get that 59 again in best ball.. We’ll make an effort.” Cantlay stated.
