Xander Schauffele took a ‘frying pan to the face.’ Then came something amazing

If you haven’t heard, cuts are suddenly all the rage in golf.

A year after the PGA Tour voted on a new Signature Events series aimed at reducing field sizes and — in some cases — eliminating golf’s 36-hole cutline, the cut has returned with a vengeance in the new year. Golf Channel’s Friday afternoon telecasts are now largely based around the race to stay inside the weekend, while players and sponsors alike have voiced their support for the competitive juice added to tournaments by cleaving the playing field in half.

No player better embodies the argument for the cutline than Xander Schauffele, who entered this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational clutching golf’s longest made-cut streak. In fact, Friday marked exactly three years since Schauffele’s last missed cut. Fifty-seven events have followed, including a pair of major championship victories, and Schauffele has played his way into the weekend at all of ’em.

And that, dear readers, is what brings us to what happened on the 13th tee box on Friday afternoon at Bay Hill.

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It had been an impressive day for Schauffele, up until about 30 minutes prior. After a five-over opening-round 77 put his weekend hopes at risk, Xander powered his way through the opening 10 holes at Bay Hill, recording three birdies and not a single bogey. With conditions firming and scores ballooning around him, Schauffele played himself — as usual — back onto the right side of the cutline. But then came disaster.

“I was sitting in a nice, as cozy of a spot as I could have been at Bay Hill,” Schauffele said with a grin Friday afternoon. “Then got absolutely hit in the face with a frying pan on 11.”

A frying pan to the skull, or more accurately, a pair of double-bogeys. The first arrived on the 11th hole, courtesy of an approach shot yanked into the water, followed by another double on the 12th, thanks to a brief bout of short-game ping-pong. Now, on the 13th, Schauffele was two shots over the projected cutline with four of the toughest holes on the golf course still to play.

“Kind of messed up some really easy things,” Schauffele said after. “I mean, one really bad swing, and some seriously bad execution around the greens on the par-5. So it was a very stressful, nice day for me.”

For many players, the four-shot swing might have been a knockout blow. But not for Schauffele. He stuck his tee shot to eight feet on the 13th and poured in the putt for birdie, then drained 30-footers for birdie on the 14th and 16th holes. Almost as quickly as he’d given back four shots, he’d taken three more, moving to three over and one shot inside the projected cutline. A bogey on the 18th wouldn’t be enough to dismantle the frantic last dash: he’d done it again, extending his made-cut streak to 58.

Schauffele’s performance was extra impressive considering the context. The 31-year-old wasn’t just playing great golf under the gun in one of the Tour’s toughest closing stretches, he was doing so in only his second start of 2025 after missing the better part of the last two months with an intercostal strain. Friday afternoon’s comeback was impressive in its own right, but given these other factors, it was downright stupefying.

“Even today, going double-double sitting in a really nice spot, it was an easy time to get frustrated. But I said earlier in the week I’m going to have to go to a special place to play decent golf, and I had to dig deep,” Schauffele said. “So it was good practice on that front. Austin and I are proud of our cut streak, no doubt. Is it what we think about? No. But usually when you focus on winning you make a lot of cuts and end up somewhere in between.”

Of course, Schauffele’s made-cut streak is the longest on Tour now, but it pales in comparison to the longest in Tour history. That honor belongs to Tiger Woods, who had a whopping 142 straight made cuts. Other impressive all-time cut streaks? Byron Nelson at 113, Jack Nicklaus at 105, and Hale Irwin at 86.

Even with his current streak, Schauffele remains at least a year removed from reaching Irwin, and several years from Nicklaus, Nelson or Woods. That’s a long way off, much further than the narrowly avoided disaster on Friday afternoon at the Arnold Palmer. But you can’t get there without a lot of good golf, and a lot of timely good golf. Xander Schauffele has had a lot of both over the last three years.

“I knew it was going to be tough and I’m glad I’m proud to make the weekend,” Schauffele said. “I know that sounds ridiculous, but I am really happy I can get two more rounds of golf on a really tough property to try to get myself ready for hard tournaments for the rest of the year.”

Perhaps it is ridiculous for the third-ranked player in the world to be glad he made the weekend, but it sure didn’t sound that way on Friday afternoon at Bay Hill.

In golf as in life, half the challenge is just showing up.