Schauffele immediately regretted handling cactus at WM Phoenix Open
Feb 11, 2022, 9:20 AM
There is the frustration of landing a shot next to a tree or a boulder or a fence. Lots of people know that feeling.
And then, as desert dwellers know all too well, there is landing a ball next to a cactus.
San Diego native Xander Schauffele does not know.
"Seemed like a good idea at the time." 😂
Xander Schauffele moved a cactus out of the way and immediately regretted it 🌵 pic.twitter.com/LBFlJewukL
— ESPN+ (@ESPNPlus) February 10, 2022
On Thursday in the opening round of the WM Phoenix Open, the No. 8 golfer in the world found himself bunched up next to a pricky pear cactus. Unfortunately, he determined that one piece of the cactus was dead and loose on the ground. He decided to move it to allow him to set up shop.
Schauffele underestimated that a dead cactus does not equate to no more spines in said cactus. With an ESPN+ crew commentating, the golfer picked up the piece of pricky pear by the big spines and got nailed by the little spines.
“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Schauffele told the gallery as he picked the pricks out of his fingers.
The announcers commented that picking up a potentially hazardous loose object might normally be the job of a caddie, but Schauffele’s, Austin Kaiser, was out due to testing positive for COVID-19.
Schauffele’s friend, Kevin Techakanokboon, was caddying for him for only the second time.
Schauffele apparently was no worse for the wear. He managed to save par on the sixth hole and finished the day at 67, a few shots off the lead once the entire first round at TPC Scottsdale was wrapped early Friday morning.
And luckily, the run-in with the pricky pear didn’t traumatize him.
“I was stepping on this piece and it felt loose, so I went to go have a look with my right hand, and some people in the crowd are like, ‘He’s from San Diego,'” Schauffele told reporters afterward. “So they’re right: We don’t really have cholla or whatever you call it, so I grabbed a piece out and there was like six or seven little thorns sticking in my hand, but it’s all good, it was worth it.”
Told it was a pricky pear, Schauffele said: “I am not familiar with the succulents and cacti and all the other things that are planted out on this (course), but they are thorny.”
