NORTH BERWICK, Scotland — Xander Schaufele continues to make up for lost time.
Without a win for more than two years, Schaufele claimed his fourth victory in the past 12 months on Sunday when he overcame a difficult moment in the middle of his round with two key birdies and a save for a par 70 to win the Scottish Open.
Next up is another test on Scottish soil, this purest of all, the St Andrews Open. Schaufele heads home to golf as one of the hottest players in the world.
It was the first time the PGA Tour co-sanctioned a European Tour.
“It’s just an honor to win the first one,” said Schaufele, who now has seven career PGA Tour titles.
Xander Schaufele holds the Scottish Open trophy after his victory on Sunday, his fourth in the last 12 months. Andrew Reddington/Getty Images
His 8-foot par save on the par-3 17th at The Renaissance Club gave him a 2-stroke lead and the 28-year-old from San Diego played it smart from there. He removed the iron from the 18th tee to avoid trouble and found himself missing an 8-foot par that only affected the margin.
Schaufele finished at 7-under 273, 1 shot ahead of Kurt Kitayama (66).
Kitayama had a 1-shot lead on the back nine and was still tied until he missed a 6-foot par putt on the 17th hole and then had to wait to see if his score would be enough.
The consolation for Kitayama was earning one of three spots in the field at The Open, his third consecutive appearance in golf’s oldest championship. The other two spots went to Brandon Wu and Jamie Donaldson, who were sixth.
So many others had the chance to win a place at St Andrews. Rickie Fowler has played in every Open since 2010 and entered the final round of the Scottish Open within range. But he closed with a 75 and returned home across the Atlantic.
Ryan Palmer was also in position until he played the back nine with two bogeys and no birdies and missed by 2 shots. It was more difficult for Alex Smalley, who only needed a par on the 18th to earn a place. He made gods.
It was not easy for Schaufele either.
He started the final round with a 2-shot lead and birdied the first two holes. He was 4 strokes ahead after five holes. And when he got to the back nine, he was 1 shot behind.
“It was stressful,” Schaufele said. “I’m not going to put makeup on the pig here. It was a very average day, probably my worst result this week. You can’t get ahead of yourself in links golf. I was forward, backward, forward, backward. I just kept my head down.”
Things started to turn in his favor when Schaufele birdied the 14th hole 15 feet to regain the lead, then birdied the par-5 16th in 2 for a 2-putt birdie , which extended his lead to 2 strokes. Just as important was the 17th, when he chipped from behind the green about 8 feet to the hole and made par to keep his cushion.
Schauffele has now won two straight PGA Tour starts – his victory at the JP McManus Pro-Am in Ireland earlier in the week not counting – entering the final major of the year. The last player to win two straight before a major was Dustin Johnson in 2016, and then he tied for ninth at the Open Championship at Royal Troon.
Schauffele had gone more than three years without a win dating back to the Sentry Tournament of Champions in Kapalua to start 2019, and it was gnawing at him.
But then Schaufele won Olympic gold at the Tokyo Olympics last summer. He teamed with Patrick Cantlay to win the Zurich Classic of New Orleans in late April, and now he’s added two more of his own. This takes him to No. 5 in the world.
“Just to get over the hump, honestly, it was big,” he said of his first PGA Tour win this year in New Orleans. “It was definitely a boost for me, as you can tell.”
Joohyung Kim, the 20-year-old South Korean, also had a brief share of the lead with a brilliant play at the 17th in which his ball rolled off the backslope to 5 feet for birdie. But he bogeyed the 18th and shot a 67 to finish third. It moved up to number 39, its first time in the top 50.
Jordan Spieth once again had his share of adventures.
He was within 1 shot of the lead until he pulled his shot on the 14th into tall grass, hacked long and made double bogey, then bogeyed the 15th with a wedge in his hand from the fairway. Spieth had two birdies, three bogeys and a double bogey on the back nine and shot a 72 to tie for 10th.
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