Q. How would you characterize the match today?
XANDER SCHAUFFELE: I played great. I played really solid. I think I had one bad swing all day. Turning the ball both ways, which is refreshing compared to how I've been hitting it in recent tournaments. Just played really solid, kind of kept it in front of me and had a big enough lead to cruise in laid.
Q. What have you been working on to turn the ball both ways?
XANDER SCHAUFFELE: It's been a work in progress with equipment on the woods side. I've been hitting my irons pretty good, and I don't know if it's a speed thing or a delivery thing, but my whole bag wasn't really married to each other. I'd hit my irons really good and my driver or hit my driver okay and my irons bad.
We've been kind of working through it a lot last week and earlier this week, Monday, Tuesday.
It's nice that it worked out.
Q. How big is a win on day one in this tournament?
XANDER SCHAUFFELE: It's always big. You know you have three matches in total, but there's been plenty of times where you go 2 & 1 and you don't get out because somebody goes 3-0.
If you want to get out of your group, just go 3-0 and that'll do the job. That's kind of what we have in mind.
Q. You're a grinder; you're a bulldog in these competitions. Can you explain why you feel like you haven't made it out of pool play before?
XANDER SCHAUFFELE: Yeah, I mean, I don't think I've been in great form coming in in the past. The one time I played really well I think Sergio was like 9-under through 16 or something and I was 6-under.
I was playing well and he beat me straight up. It's one of those things where you can match up against someone, shoot 1-over and win your match, or you can shoot 7-under and lose your match.
That's just the beauty of match play and the beauty of all these players being the top players in the world, and it's also this golf course. Anyone can birdie any hole on any given day, so it makes it pretty exciting.
Q. Seven matches throughout the week. Do you head back to the range or just take it easy --
XANDER SCHAUFFELE: We had 9:40 and I've got Aaron at 2:05 tomorrow, so probably do a little workout and some physio and maybe stall, maybe watch some golf later on on the telly. But other than that, just hang out.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports