Xander Schauffele withdraws from Sentry Tournament of Champions due to back injury, Collin Morikawa leads

Updated 07/01/2023 at 12:37 GMT

The start to 2023 has not gone according to plan for Xander Schauffele who was forced to withdraw from the Sentry Tournament of Champions at the Plantation Course in Hawaii due to a back injury. The world No. 6 attempted to grit it out, but after a conversation with his caddie he elected to walk in after nine holes of his second round and will now head for a scan.

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Xander Schauffele pulled out of the Sentry Tournament of Champions mid-way through the second round due to a back injury.

The world No. 6 did not take part in the pro-am on Wednesday on account of the problem, and looked in discomfort in an opening round of 70.

Schauffele teed it up on Friday despite admitting to flinching on shots, but walked in after nine holes.

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He will head home for a scan in the hope that medical opinion can get to the root cause of the issues.

“I'm 29, I need to preserve my health,” Schauffele said. “I feel like I've done a really good job up until this point and the fact that I can't really pinpoint what it is is a bit frustrating. So, once I get the scan and look at it and have all the pros look at it and then if they tell me that I'm OK, then I think I'll start to feel better and stop flinching at what I'm doing.”

Schauffele praised his caddie Austin Kaiser for persuading him to make the "smart" decision and withdraw.

“Austin told me on 9, he's like, ‘You know, we have a lot of tournaments coming up on the West Coast Swing, and it's a big swing for us,” Schauffele said. “And he's like, ‘You know, are you going to look back and feel like really proud of yourself for like gutting it out and maybe hurting yourself more? Or should we pull out and be smart here? Because we have, you know, a long way to go.’ So, yeah, it kind of went like that.”

Collin Morikawa holds a two-shot lead at the halfway stage on the Plantation Course in Hawaii.

Morikawa had a tough time in 2022 as he battled with his swing, but showed positive signs towards the end of the year and is well placed to snap a drought dating back to the DP World Tour Championship in November 2021.

In what is a high-class field, Morikawa is two shots clear of Masters champion Scottie Scheffler and JJ Spaun.

Jordan Spieth carded a 66 on Friday to get within three of the lead, with Tom Kim a shot further back at 12-under.

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