OWINGS MILLS, Md. – Xander Schauffele had no desire to sugarcoat it. This has been his worst season on the PGA TOUR. He feels it, and the FedExCup standings state it plainly.

Schauffele begins this BMW Championship from a place he’s never been: fighting for his life in the FedExCup Playoffs. At 43rd in the FedExCup standings, Schauffele has significant ground to make up and only one more start to do it. Only the top 30 in the standings will advance to next week’s TOUR Championship. At a minimum, Schauffele needs to finish solo 21st to have a chance, though he will likely need to do a lot more than that with the increased point totals available to the entire field at Caves Valley.

You would have been hard-pressed to find anyone at the beginning of the season who predicted Schauffele, the world No. 3 and winner of two majors in 2024, would be sweating a spot at East Lake. But that’s exactly where Schauffele is. Injuries have played a part in it, but so too has inconsistent golf. A confluence of factors has resulted in, barring a turnaround in the final two weeks, what will be a lost season in the middle of the American’s prime.

“Even my rookie year, I was in a better position,” Schauffele said, who won late in the season that year and went on to win the TOUR Championship in his first appearance at East Lake. “It sort of has that rookie year vibe to me a little bit. Just sort of need to work my way through the Playoffs. This is kind of it for myself and my team, and just got to try to leave it all out there.”

If he doesn’t qualify, Schauffele will miss the TOUR Championship for the first time in his career, and the season-ending tournament will be without the player who plays East Lake better than anyone. Schauffele won at East Lake in 2017 and has never finished worse than eighth. Twice in the Starting Strokes era, Schauffele didn’t win the FedExCup despite shooting the low 72-hole score. With the tournament format changed, Schauffele figures to be one of the favorites, but he’s got to get there first.

This version of Schauffele faintly resembles the version who broke out in 2024 with two major championships. He has a career-low three top 10s and nine top 25s. In 2024, he had 15 top 10s and 20 top 25s (though he played seven more events than this season). His iron play has remained elite (10th on TOUR in Strokes Gained: Approach), but he’s fallen off dramatically off-the-tee and on the greens, which have both been calling cards for Schauffele throughout his career. He is outside the top-100 in driving and outside the top-120 in putting.

“There's a few sort of outlier events where I drove it horrendously and putted horrendously and chipped horrendously,” Schauffele explained. “... It's a work in progress … it's been one of those things where I'm trying to find a cue or a feel or just something I can go with. Kind of still in the hunt for it, but I think it's going a little bit better.”

Schauffele has continued to work through the issues with coach Chris Como, who helped Schauffele add distance ahead of the 2024 season, which helped contribute to his career year. Schauffele was hesitant to put too much blame on the rib injury that cost him the first two months of the season, but it’s also the only major change that has occurred between Schauffele’s polar opposite seasons. And while that could explain some of his woes off the tee, it doesn’t explain some of the putting struggles. Schauffele has been, anecdotally and statistically, one of the best putters on TOUR since he earned his card in 2017. This year, he ranks 125th.

“When it feels like it's your weapon and then you're sort of intimidated by a club that you used to love, you have to try and mentally get over that,” Schauffele said.

Schauffele has still put together a respectable season; you don’t reach the BMW Championship without that. He tied for eighth at the Masters and finished T7-T8 in two weeks at the Genesis Scottish Open and The Open Championship, though he was never a threat to win any of those events. And that’s what a player of Schauffele’s caliber grades their season by – how many times they give themselves a chance to win. Schauffele’s season would be solid for an average TOUR player, but not for one of the game’s best, who looked to be challenging Scottie Scheffler as the best golfer in the world less than 12 months ago. And at age 31, it’s disappointing to struggle in what should be a prime year of your career.

But there are still two weeks left, and in a way, the Playoffs can be freeing for Schauffele. He secured Signature Event starts by qualifying for this week and has status locked up for many years to come because of his major championships. That means this week is a free dice roll. Schauffele wants a chance to win the FedExCup, but he’s not carrying the burden that others are with more uncertainty.

“I'm trying to sort of get that freedom as well because I have absolutely nothing to lose," he said.