Xander Schauffele roars to life for tourney-best 7-under 65

Xander Schauffele knew the deafening roars echoing through Augusta National late Friday weren't necessarily aimed in his direction, not with Tiger Woods making a charge at the Masters one group behind him.

"It was his fault for all the roars, he was causing the problems," Schauffele joked.

But make no mistake, there were plenty of cheers directed at Schauffele — and rightfully so. Starting the day 1 over, Schauffele turned in the best round of the tournament.

Schauffele made six birdies over his final 11 holes to post a sizzling 7-under-par 65. The groove wasn't quite as eye-opening as his final-round 62 in January at the Sentry Tournament of Champions, but it was one shot better than any other round on the day and got him within one shot of the lead.

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"I think whenever you fire off a bunch of birdies like I did today, you sort of lose track of where you're at," Schauffele said. "It's great. It's hard to get in the zone, no one really knows how to get in it. But once you start firing off birdies and not looking back, it's a nice place to be."

Schauffele actually started his day with a bogey on No. 1 to fall back to 2 over. But he immediately got that shot back with a birdie on No. 2 and added another on No. 3, hitting his approach to two feet.

After closing his front nine with two birdies, Schauffele picked up the pace late, with birdies on four of his final six holes, including both par-5s. He capped his round by stuffing his approach on 18 to four feet.

"On the seventh hole I told my caddie how cool, one of my favorite things about being on this property besides it being Augusta is just the roars through the trees," Schauffele said. "Up to that point, I didn't make too many myself, but I made some birdies coming in, which was nice."

Even if his roars were different than the others rolling through the pines.

"I just thought since I was tapping in for birdies, two-putt birdies aren't that exciting," he said. "But I'll take them all day."