ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — After two months without competition, PGA and British Open champion Xander Schauffele set modest expectations at Bay Hill and achieved one of his goals at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
He gets two more rounds. The longest cut streak on the PGA Tour in 20 years is still intact at 58 in a row.
But it took more work than he imaged. Schauffele, who opened with a 77, was 3 under for his round through 10 holes when he ran into trouble. The 11th hole felt like getting “hit in the face with a frying pan.” The par-5 12th hole he described as an “absolute disaster.”
He made double bogey on both and was on the ropes. But he found birdies on a course that doesn't give them up easily, hitting wedge to 8 feet to a back pin on the 13th, holing a 30-foot birdie putt on the 14th and then from a fairway bunker to pin-high on the par-5 16th to set up a two-putt birdie.
A bogey on the final hole gave him a 71 — 12 shots behind 36-hole leader Shane Lowry — and made him sweat only briefly until it was clear he would make the cut on the number. This signature event has a 36-hole cut to top 50 and ties, plus anyone within 10 shots of the lead.
“I try really hard to not quit,” Schauffele said. “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. So it was good practice on that front.”
Schauffele is playing for the first time since The Sentry at Kapalua to start the year, taking time off to heal an intercostal strain and slight tear to the cartilage in his right rib. He wasn't expecting an immediate return to great golf. He wasn't wanting to leave on Friday, either.
Austin Kaiser, his caddie, joked that he only needed four more years to catch the record of 142 made cuts in a row by Tiger Woods from February 1998 to May 2005.
It's no less impressive. The streak is the sixth-longest in PGA Tour history behind Woods, Byron Nelson (113), Jack Nicklaus (105), Hale Irwin (86) and Dow Finsterwald (72).
“Austin and I are proud of our cut streak, no doubt,” Schauffele said. “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.”
It's not that it hasn't crossed his mind on occasion.
Schauffele was on the ropes at the Scottish Open last summer, two shots below the cut line until making five birdies over the last 11 holes.
Kaiser had mentioned the cut streak to his boss the day before, so Schauffele was well aware. There was no panic in him that day at the Scottish Open, a sign of the confidence he had his game. Schauffele would go on to win the British Open the following week.
“I would have missed this cut a couple of years ago," he said last summer. He spoke that day about not having to persuade himself to be calm when it was going badly.
That's how it looked Friday at Bay Hill. He pulled a fairway bunker shot into the water on the 11th, leading to the double bogey. He was in good position just right of the 12th green when he chopped out over the green, left a chip short and took double bogey.
And then came the impressive answer.
“I had to dig deep,” Schauffele said. “I heard a birdie — someone birdied the next hole in front of me, Shane or Rory (McIlroy), and then someone birdied the par 3 as well. And I just told myself, ‘If they can do it, so can I.’"
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
FILE - Xander Schauffele checks his line before putting on the 18th green during the third round of the Tour Championship golf tournament, Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jason Allen, File)
FILE - Xander Schauffele watches his shot from the fourth fairway during the first round The Sentry golf tournament, Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025, at Kapalua Plantation Course in Kapalua, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — The sun was shining outside President Donald Trump's West Palm Beach golf course on Saturday morning when Alan Mentser got a call letting him know that police were shutting down a road nearby. It was almost time to “show the boss a little love.”
Mentser, 65, and a group of hard-core supporters have spent years gathering at the same spot to welcome Trump when he comes to play golf, and they have the routine down. They monitor flight trackers to know when Air Force One arrives and traffic cameras to see if the presidential motorcade is on the move.
It’s an intense commitment of time and resources for a brief glimpse of their political hero. Mentser pointed to a gigantic banner showing Trump giving a thumbs up against an American flag backdrop. He said each one costs $300, and he has about eight of them.
But Mentser said it's worth it at a time when supporters view Trump as a man under siege from his enemies and fabricated controversies.
"It might give him 30 seconds of seeing, ‘there’s my people,’" he said. “But that 30 seconds matter.”
Now it was time to do it again. The cue was a siren as a police vehicle blocked the road in front of the golf club.
“Here we go!” Mentser said. When he glimpsed the motorcade in the distance, he announced, “attention on deck.”
A member of the group switched the soundtrack on a portable speaker from country music to “YMCA,” the Trump campaign anthem.
The convoy of black cars rolled down the street and turned into the golf club. Trump was wearing his typical red “Make America Great Again” hat and white polo shit, and he reached across his chest to wave to the crowd with his left hand.
“President Trump! We love you!” shouted Brady Collier, 31, who wore the same hat as the president.
It was over in less than 30 seconds.
A woman with white hair pulled up shortly afterward with her windows down and a dog in the passenger seat. She waved one middle finger at the golf club and another at Trump’s supporters. Someone called her a “baby killer” before she drove off.
The moment didn’t dampen Collier’s enthusiasm. Despite all the times that he's witnessed Trump's motorcade, he said “today was special.” This time, the limo seemed to roll slower and closer to the sidewalk, giving Collier a better glimpse of the president.
“There’s nothing cooler than that,” he said. “Other than Jesus Christ.”
Collier, 31, is from Indiana but spent the winter in Florida, where he’s doing landscaping and food deliveries. It’s also an opportunity to show his support for Trump as often as possible.
Jared Petry, 24, has been doing the same thing. He’s from Ohio and is one of the “Front Row Joes,” a group of superfans that traveled the country supporting Trump at campaign rallies. Petry was in Butler, Pennsylvania, last summer when the president was fired upon in an assassination attempt.
“I heard popping. I didn’t know what was going on,” he said.
Petry was near the front of the audience, and he captured video of Trump, surrounded by Secret Service agents, lurching to his feet and pumping his fist in the air.
“I knew he was OK,” he said.
Now, Petry is outside the golf course every weekend.
“He never forgets his supporters," he said. “He waves at us.”
The group chatted about going to a nearby restaurant where Fox News host Sean Hannity is sometimes spotted, but something different happened this time. A group of staff members from the golf club came over to invite them in for a meal.
Mentser said that had never happened before. They ate freshly made omelets and blueberry muffins and walked out to the veranda, where they could see Trump playing one of the holes on his golf course.
The group refrained from trying to get Trump's attention, Mentser said.
“You don’t want to have the president post on Truth Social that ‘I was lining up my putt and my supporters threw off my game,'” he joked.
The whole experience, Mentser said, was “tremendous.”
“It’s a small way for him to say thank you, I see you," he said.
President Donald Trump waves to supporters from his limousine as he arrives at Trump International Golf Club, Saturday, March 29, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Jared Petry, a supporter of President Donald Trump, wears a number 47 Trump shirt as he joins other Trump supporters outside the Trump International Golf Club, Saturday, March 29, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Brady Collier, a supporter of President Donald Trump, joins others gathered outside the Trump International Golf Club, Saturday, March 29, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Alan Mentser, in foreground at left, from West Palm Beach, Fla., joins other supporters of President Donald Trump outside the Trump International Golf Club, Saturday, March 29, 2025, in West Palm Beach. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
