PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — Xander Schauffele on Saturday ripped into the Royal & Ancient, the governing body for the British Open, for its handling of a failed test by his driver.

The R&A began randomly testing players’ clubs at last year’s Open to see if club faces were too springy. This week, the drivers of 30 players were tested, and word leaked out late Friday that Schauffele’s Callaway Epic Flash was deemed nonconforming earlier in the week, which sent him scrambling to find a replacement for Saturday’s round.

“I had a little bit of a run-in with them because they test just 30 players [and] I thought it was a little bit unfair,’’ Schauffele said after shooting 69 Saturday to stand at 5-under. “To make it fair, they should test everybody. What’s the fair thing to do? Just test the whole field.

“This matter should be private, but R&A didn’t do their job in keeping it private. The R&A, they pissed me off because they attempted to ruin my image by not keeping this matter private. This is me coming out and treating them the exact way they treated me. It was just handled unprofessionally, and it did tick me off, for sure.

“It is an unsettling topic. I’ve been called a cheater by my fellow opponents. It’s all joking, but when someone yells ‘cheater’ in front of 200 people, to me, it’s not going to go down very well. That’s not something you joke about.

“I would gladly give up my driver if it’s not conforming, but there’s still 130 other players in the field that potentially have a nonconforming driver, as well. I had a word with them and hopefully they take my comments seriously.’’

Schauffele, who shot a 3-over-par 74 on Thursday and followed that with a second-round 65 Friday, enters the final round at 5-under par.