Entering this week’s Zozo Championship, Xander Schauffele was the prohibitive favorite. After winning two major championships in 2024, the 30-year-old seemed like a strong candidate to get off to a flying start in Japan, which is also where he won his olympic gold medal (Tokyo) in 2020.

Throughout the start of his opening round, Schauffele played some solid golf and sat at even par through eight holes. Then he arrived at the 506-yard par-4 9th hole.

To begin the hole, Schauffele hit his tee shot into the left trees and his ball settled up against the base of a trunk. The shot was nearly impossible. Instead of taking his medicine, Schauffele attempted to pitch out not once, but twice before finally deciding to take his drop.

After his round, the No. 2 player in the world spoke to the media about what happened at the 9th.

“Yeah, overall, it was pretty low stress for the most part of the day. Like 85 percent of the day was not very stressful. No. 9 just, it was an incredible spot. I wanted to take a photo of it almost, how bad it was.”

Xander called himself “stubborn” and “overconfident” for his decision to try and punch out of the trees.

“I thought at worst I would hit the ball, hit the tree and go somewhere. The worst thing happened, the worst thing that could have happened happened twice. Just a combination of being overconfident and being really stubborn and it sometimes pays off for me in tournaments and today it bit me in the ass.

“Making an eight on a par 4, I think I led bogey avoidance this last season. It’s not something I’ve done in a really long time. It’s probably been like a year since I had a meltdown like that. All you can do is laugh at it at that point because it’s just terrible.”

“For me to think I can do anything definitely got me in a hole there. I should have just taken an unplayable, but I was an idiot and tried to hit it. Then I was stubborn and then tried to hit it again, then finally took an unplayable. I was going to hit it a third time too just because, but yeah, it was a bad spot.”

After finally escaping the trees, Schauffele reached the green on his sixth shot and two-putted for a quadruple bogey.

After the costly mistake, Schauffele struggled to get his round going, making only one birdie on the back nine to stumble into the clubhouse at +3, ten shots back of Taylor Moore’s lead at -7.

Schauffele will look to bounce back in round two when he tees off at 9:07 am local time on Friday.