Xander Schauffele's Impossible Miss Provides Reminder Of Why We Love Watching Sports

By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston

BOSTON (CBS) -- Xander Schauffele, I'm sorry. But not that much.

I'm sorry that you had to be the person to remind us why we're all addicted to watching live sports. But someone had to do it. And with your career earnings being what they are (close to $17 million), you were frankly a pretty good candidate.

In this particular instance, Schauffele was in contention to win the Charles Schwab Challenge, owning a share of the lead while needing to sink a simple 3-foot putt on the 17th green to maintain that position. For the average weekend golfer, it was a painfully easy putt. For a tour pro, it was a gimme.

But that, as they say, is why we watch.

Let's get a closer look.

Goodness gracious.

That's a rough one.

That it came after Schauffele drained this putt on 15 to get back into a share of the lead ...

... makes it all the more unbelievable.

With that miss, of course, Schauffele fell one stroke behind co-leaders Daniel Berger and Collin Morikawa. Schauffele couldn't birdie 18, thus coming just a millimeter or two shy of being in the playoff.

That playoff itself was short-lived, though it had a similar feel to Schauffele's rim-out. Morikawa and Berger teed off on the 17th, and Morikawa need to make a 3-foot putt to push the playoff to a second hole. That's when The Curse Of Xander overcame his putter.

Jeepers creepers, indeed.

With that Morikawa miss, Berger won the tournament and the $1.35 million that goes with it. Morikawa had to "settle" for the second-place prize money of $817,500. And Schauffele went from having a piece of all that dough to finishing in a four-way tie for third place, which netted him $366,000. That's a whole lot of lost dough.

While the Charles Schwab Challenge may not be a full substitute for the Stanley Cup Final or the NBA Finals or even some captivating MLB games that were scheduled to have taken place this month, the tournament at the very least provided a much-needed reminder of precisely what it is that we're missing in this absence of sports. It's that unpredictable moment -- the second you look away because you know what's going to happen, only to snap back and see what you had previously believed to have been impossible. It's the instant heartbreak, the can-you-believe-it moments that we've all been sorely missing over the past several months.

So thank you, Xander Schauffele, for that beautiful reminder. You didn't mean to do it, but you managed to deliver precisely what starving sports fans all need right now.

You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.

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