Xander Schauffele has been here before, but not for a while. Max Greyserman found himself in this position at this tournament last year. He also found himself in a similar spot at the Rocket Classic, where he finished T2 in a playoff.
After three rounds of the Baycurrent classic from 2025 at Yokohama Country Club in Japan, Schauffele and Greyserman are at the top of the leaderboard, tied at 12 under.
Schauffele won two Majors last season, but hasn’t had much to do with himself this season. A rib injury cost Schauffele a month early in the season, and he has spent the rest of the year trying to rediscover his big-time winning form. Schauffele ran into problems after returning from injury. He fought to make the cut at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, and an 81 at the Players Championship led to a lengthy session with coach Chris Como. That series session, which included a number of one-handed finishes and exasperated reactions, would come to define a frustrating season for Schauffele — one in which he tried to eliminate bad habits that found their way into the swing that won him in 2024.
“I would say bad habits,” Schauffele said at the Genesis Scottish Open in July. “It was still new – the way I moved the club last year was still new, and the bad place I took the club to this year was new. So I played a lot – or hit a lot of bad shots from one place, but it was my home. I’ve played from there, call it short and fired and quiet. I’ve played a lot of golf since then. So I played with it, you know, at home and missed my shots with it at home. So as soon as I went out came, a tournament, I already know it, it’s like my DNA. So ties in with how I overdid the club by coming across too far and coming up short. This is a place I’ve never played before. It’s hard to create any sort of learning curve in a season where you’re trying to bounce back. So just a bad match for me.”
Interview by Xander Schauffele after round 3 of Baycurrent Classic
Schauffele went T8-T7 at the Scottish Open and Open Championship before going T22-T28 in the first two legs of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, missing the Tour Championship for the first time in his career. But he seems to have found something during Team USA’s Ryder Cup loss to Bethpage Black. Schauffele went 3-1-0 in four sessions, including defeating Jon Rahm in singles on Sunday. His improved play has continued this week in Japan. Schauffele opened with an even-par 71, but fired a 63 on Friday and backed it up with a 67 on Saturday, moving Greyserman atop the leaderboard and putting himself in position to snap a winless drought that has now lasted more than a year.
“This is the first time I’ve competed all year, I think, so that’s fun,” Schauffele said after his round Saturday. “I played some pretty good golf. The weather was tough, I’m so proud of today’s fight.”
For Schauffele, after a year of searching for the great murderer he had become, it is nice to feel like himself again. But he knows that feeling in golf can be fleeting. Confidence remains and grows as long as the arrow points upwards. But it can evaporate quickly.
“It’s growing,” Schauffele said of his confidence. “It’s a tricky thing. It takes a while to grow and it goes away quickly. I’m just trying to put one block after another and slowly grow that confidence, like I said before, and so far we’ve done that.”
Schauffele has not competed this season, but he has nine PGA Tour wins, two majors and an Olympic gold medal to his name. A win on Sunday would give Schauffele an exclamation point on what would otherwise be a lost year. Hoisting the trophy on Sunday would also be particularly important for Schauffele, given his family ties to Japan. His grandparents are on site this week to keep an eye on him. His mother grew up in Japan. It would also be Schauffele’s first victory as a sire.
“That’s a long way from now, but yes, to think into the future would be an incredible feeling,” Schauffele said.
On the other side of Sunday’s match in Yokohama is 30-year-old Greyserman, who is still looking for his first win on the PGA Tour.
At last year’s Baycurrent Classic, Greyserman took the lead on the back nine on Sunday, but Nico Echavarria stopped his approach shot on the 72nd to make birdie and beat Greyserman by one shot. It was one of three second-place finishes for Greyserman in 2024. This year he added another at the 2025 Rocket Classic. Greyserman has been knocking on the door. He’s confident it’s a matter of when, not if, he becomes a PGA Tour winner.
“Any time you don’t win or maybe you don’t reach your goal, I don’t think that’s a failure,” Greyserman said Sunday of his loss last year. “When I look at last year, I look at: Was I in the last group on Sunday? Did I play with a premier league player?” [Justin Thomas] like I’m playing with tomorrow? I was. And how did I approach that? I thought I handled that very well. Last year I played a good round on Sunday and was defeated. I don’t think I gave up on the tournament in any way. I put in a good round and Nico birdied two of the last three holes, leaving me one hole short. So I guess I can look back at last year, when I was in exactly the same position as last year. I thought I handled everything well, competed well and performed well, so that’s the plan for tomorrow.
Greyserman knows he won’t be the crowd favorite at Yokohama Country Club on Sunday. The Japanese crowd will certainly try to get Schauffele across the finish line. But Greyserman won’t lose sight of that as he looks to finally enter the winner’s circle.
“I played with him today, so there’s one thing I can draw from, but whether I’m playing with Xander or, I don’t know, Tiger in his prime or any other guy here, it’s the same wave,” Greyserman said. “So I think the crowd is rooting for Xander a little bit more than other people, I felt that a little bit today. But there’s plenty of experience from the past. Last group on Sunday, I’ve done that before, probably a few times. Just go out there and do the same thing I do every day.”
Schauffele and Greyserman will duel on Sunday with the former looking to prove he has finally found himself, while the latter hopes to secure a dream he has let slip through his fingers several times before.
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