PGA Tour player blog: Japan is a special place for me, says Xander Schauffele

I love Japan and I love being here. I’ve been coming over here a lot over the years and my grandparents live in Tokyo and I have uncles, aunts and cousins from my mum’s side of the family here. I’ve always enjoyed the culture, the people and the food. It’s a very special place which I hold very dear to myself and my whole family.

You know when you open a suitcase, you can always kind of smell sort of where you come from. I could always tell whenever my grandparents used to travel to San Diego to visit us when I was a kid – it always smelled like Japan.

Every time I come over here, I really appreciate the culture and how kind and respectful everyone is and I think I speak for everyone competing in this week’s Zozo Championship.

As many of you know, I’m the only natural-born American in my family. My dad, Stefan, is half-French, half-German, born in Stuttgart while my brother Nico was born in Stuttgart. My mum Ping Yi was born in Chinese Taipei and grew up in Japan. Hence, we have family in both Chinese Taipei and Japan. My wife Maya’s mum is also Japanese.

I’m excited to be playing in front of Japanese fans again this week at the Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club. Golf in Japan typically is much tighter, much narrower and conditions are pristine across the board each and every week. If you’ve never played golf here, they like things to be perfect and they are, which is very nice for us to compete on.

The course is very hard. There are probably five par-fours out here that are very difficult and, if you can kind of go through those holes maybe close to level par for the week and you play the rest of the golf course as you’re supposed to play it, you’re going to have a pretty good chance. The greens are more slopey than I first anticipated and, during one of my first few practice rounds, I putted it off like three or four greens, which was a little shocking.

I remember my first time playing in the Zozo the year Tiger Woods won in 2019, I was paired with Justin Thomas and Rory McIlroy in the first two rounds and we had such a warm welcome on the first hole with five to 10 rows deep of people just going nuts. When our names got announced, it was like, holy smokes, are we at a major championship? People in Japan love golf and it’s really amazing they’re very supportive, respectful and polite. I can’t wait to see them coming out to support the players and tournament again as we’ve got another great field this week.

It really is a big deal trying to win another PGA Tour tournament in a country which is like my second home. I’ve already had the honour of

winning the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympic Games

in 2021 which is a major highlight in my career and I will be doing everything I can to win the tournament, which will be really special especially with my family in attendance.

It’s going to be another week with big dinners planned with a lot of family members and it’ll be nice to see my grandparents. You know, I always pencil down this tournament on my schedule every year and it’ll be a huge honour for my family if I was able to secure a “W” this week. I personally like playing abroad, away from home, as it’s great to grow the game in other places around the world besides the United States. I’m going to try and put the best show that I can put on for my grandparents, family and fans.