Xander Schauffele admits he ’embarrassingly’ lost golf game to Michael Jordan

Xander Schauffele has the world at his feet after winning the PGA Championship last month, but the world number two was brought crashing down to earth by NBA legend Michael Jordan.

The Chicago Bulls icon is a golf fanatic, playing 36 holes “almost every day”, and although he is reported to have a handicap in the region of 1.5, he should be no match for 30-year-old Schauffele – a newly crowned major champion and one of the most consistent players on the PGA Tour.

Ahead of this week’s US Open at Pinehurst No. 2 in Jordan’s native North Carolina, Schauffele took on Jordan on his private members-only course, Grove XXIII – a nod to the number 23 jersey he wore as he won six NBA titles with the Bulls – on the outskirts of Hobe Sound, Florida.

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With no strokes given, Jordan, 61, mounted a late comeback on the back nine to beat Schauffele “straight up”.

“I have, it is fun,” Schauffele told CBS on the range at Pinehurst when asked if he had played against Jordan. “I did my best and then he beat me straight up, which is embarrassing. In the last three holes. I pancaked him and on his stroke holes I started talking s*** to him and he got all quiet and focused and then he birdied 15 and 16 [with] no strokes, beat me straight up and I was like ‘all right’.”

Jordan enlisted the help of revered golf designer Bobby Weed to create Grove XXIII and the site officially opened in 2019. Rickie Fowler was among the first pros to play the course and he told the SubPar podcast a year later: “It’s his golf course, so it’s set up very well for him.”

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Jordan, who is a renowned gambler and loves a wager on the course, has been taking money off his guests ever since. It is no surprise he was delighted by what Weed created.

“He looked at me and said, ‘I’m fortunate enough I can be anywhere in the world, but there’s no other place I’d rather be than right here,’” Weed told CNN.