Course Strategy · Strategy

Pick your safe side and treat the rough as fairway

Off the tee, Xander Schauffele defines his target as a zone that includes the safe rough, not just the fairway. He aims middle-fairway toward the safe side and treats the fescue on that side as an acceptable result, with the fairway itself being a bonus. The idea is to pick the side away from the trouble rather than trying to hit every fairway, especially when wind makes fairways hard to hit.