Xander Schauffele would have rather had a softer landing in his return from a rib injury. The Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill isn’t a place you want to parachute into after almost two months on the couch.
But that’s where Schauffele found himself Thursday, getting bludgeoned by a major-like test in Orlando in his first competitive round back from an intercostal strain and small tear in his rib cartilage.
His game was understandably rusty, and the mistakes piled up en route to an opening-round five-over-par 77.
‘Really, really sucked’: Xander Schauffele opens up on frustrating 8-week layoff
“It was, you know, I got my a– kicked,” Schauffele said after his round.
The good news is that the World No. 3 didn’t feel any pain or discomfort as he battled his way around Arnie’s Place. But he lamented having to make his return at one of the toughest venues on the PGA Tour.
“It’s a tough place to come back to, not going to lie,” Schauffele said. “Palm Springs would have been nice, something like that, that would have been a little bit easier, miss a couple, get away with it. A bit of a masochist, I guess. I knew I was going to come in on short notice to what is sort of like a major championship setup around the greens, and with the greens being crusty, I really felt it there more than anything else.”
Schauffele said he wasn’t “seeing the lines” on the greens Thursday and it showed as he lost 2.84 strokes putting in Round 1. He also lost 1.79 shots around the greens.
That rusty return has Schauffele 10 shots back of first-round leader Wyndham Clark and in danger of seeing his streak of 57 consecutive cuts made come to an end on Friday. That streak is the longest active streak on Tour. Scottie Scheffler is second at 47.
Schauffele will begin the second round squarely on the cut line. The Arnold Palmer Invitational is a limited-field event that will see the top 50 and ties, plus anyone within 10 strokes of the lead, make the cut.
The two-time major champion hasn’t missed a cut since the 2022 Masters. He hopes to punch back against Bay Hill on Friday and keep his streak alive heading into the Players Championship next week.