TROON — Xander Schauffele should have been a soccer player. That was always the plan, in fact. His father, Stefan, was convinced that would be his path. At the age of four, his son could shoot with both feet, he could hit half-volleys, he could dribble and change directions with artistry and intent. And so, Stefan put a plan in motion. He would train his boy hard, with the idea that he would change the face of American soccer.
“My wife thought I was crazy,” Stefan Schauffele said. “But I always saw the talent. It was astonishing. I just couldn’t believe it. I thought he would be the rescue of the American soccer team. Because boy do they need help.”
Life had other plans. When Schauffele was 14, he and his family were told by the coach of an elite traveling team in Southern California that Xander could play midfield. He’d been an effective sweeper on various teams, but now he’d been promised the chance to play offense, and this was his moment to blossom. Yet when he showed up for the first day of practice, he was told plans had changed, and he would be a sweeper. He was devastated.
“I remember he came running across the field and he said ‘They lied to me. So now I’m going to be on the PGA Tour,” Stefan Schauffele said. “That literally came out of his mouth.’ ”
Whether or not American soccer lost a savior in that moment is impossible to discern. But what is fair to say, especially after Schauffele started down a path that would lead him to our current moment, is he can credibly claim he is one of the best American golfers of his generation.
Schauffele won his second major of 2024 by winning the Open Championship at Troon on Sunday, a victory that was more meaningful than it was memorable. Schauffele’s final round 65 didn’t feature a dramatic birdie that you’ll see on highlight packages for decades to come, but it was more evidence that he can wear down his opponents with clinical excellence. Throughout the day, various players jostled for position. In the end, it was Schauffele who cruised to victory, outlasting Justin Rose, Billy Horschel and Thriston Lawrence.
He was a human metronome of swing science and tempo.
“There's calmness and super stressful moments when you're trying to win a major championship,” Xander Schauffele said. “I felt them in the past, the ones I didn't win, and I let them get to me. Today I felt like I did a pretty good job of weathering the storm when I needed to.”
Schauffle may not have the extra gear that some of his peers possess. He does not have Bryson DeChambeau’s speed, Scottie Scheffler’s artistry or Rory McIlroy’s sizzle, but he may possess something even more important. He is better, in aggregate, than all of them, at least right now. He is more consistent than DeChambeau, he’s a better putter than Scheffler, and he’s a better iron player than McIlroy.
Most importantly: He is unlikely to go backward when the pressure intensifies. His victory at the PGA Championship in May seems to have removed a significant mental burden from his shoulders, and the rest of the golf world may have to reckon with that reality going forward.
“I asked him: Do you think the Claret Jug fits into the Wanamaker Trophy?” Stefan Schauffele joked as he sipped whiskey from a flask behind the 18th green at Troon. “He said, ‘I don’t know for sure, but we can find out.’ ”
A decade from now, how will we remember the majors of 2024?
Will it be seen as the year of Xander Schauffele’s ascendance, or the year that Scottie Scheffler didn’t fully capitalize on one of the greatest ball-striking seasons in history?
Schauffele is the easy answer. By winning two majors in the same year, he did something that’s only happened 21 times in history, the most recent being Brooks Koepka, who won the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship in 2018. And this might just be the beginning of Schauffele’s run.
“It’s up to you guys to look at the statistics and see who has the potential to be the next career Grand Slam winner, because I think [Xander] has the game,” Stefan Schauffele said. “Of course I’m subjective, but I think if you look at it objectively, I think you’ll arrive at the same conclusion.”
The more nuanced answer might be Scheffler, because from tee to green, he continues to have no equal. On Saturday, he hit arguably the best shot of anyone during major season, a piercing 3-wood that knifed through a menacing wind on the 17th hole and came to rest three feet from the cup. It was, simply put, breathtaking.
“I probably don't hit a 3-wood on a par-3 very often,” Scheffler said, in a typically understated fashion.
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Scheffler’s putter, however, continues to be his kryptonite. He could not mount a sustainable charge on Sunday, and was the only player in the top 10 at the Open to lose strokes on the green (-1.02) in the final round. After signing his scorecard, he declined to speak with reporters, but stopped to sign a few pin flags and take a few selfies with fans. Then he quickly made his way toward his rental car. The Olympics will be here soon, and he and Schauffele will be in Paris representing the United States. On his way to his car, a fashion blogger managed to grab him and ask if he would be willing to talk about his outfit for a second. He was surveying all the players.
“Um, I’m wearing shoes and a blue sweater?” Scheffler said, chuckling as he said it. “I’m not good at this stuff. Trust me, you don’t want me for this.”
And just like that, Scottie Scheffler was gone, leaving behind a strange-yet-fascinating major season.
Justin Rose was choking back tears when he came off the 18th green at Troon on Sunday. He was gutted, but he was also proud. He’d told himself at the start of the day he didn’t want to have any regrets when it was over. He felt like he’d lived up to that promise. He’d shot a 67, but it wasn’t good enough to outlast Schauffele, his playing partner.
“In terms of how I played and the execution of my emotions today, my mindset, I left it all out there,” Rose said. “I'm super proud of how I competed.”
Rose knew, even if he didn't want to say it, there wouldn’t be many opportunities like this in the future. Not at age 43. And so he vowed to savor the experience in a tournament that’s always meant so much to him. When he was 17 years old, he’d delighted everyone by holing out from the rough on the 18th hole at Royal Birkdale to finish T-4 in his Open Championship debut. In some ways, he’d been chasing that feeling ever since in this tournament.
On Sunday morning, when he got dressed, he smiled when he realized his last clean outfit for the week was a Cabernet-colored sweater similar to the one he wore when he was 17.
“It's a nice coincidence,” Rose said. “I've worn blue all week because a lot of my wetsuit stuff has been blue, my sweaters have been blue. I thought, okay, I'm bored of blue, and this was literally the only color available.”
Schauffele, however, got in the way of Rose’s destiny. He made a birdie putt on 18 to finish solo second, but by then it was all but irrelevant. Rose acknowledged Schauffele’s performance by hanging back and letting him stroll up the 18th fairway on his own.
“He has a lot of horsepower, do you know what I mean?” Rose said. “In the sense of he's good with a wedge, he's great with a putter, he hits the ball a long way, obviously his iron play is strong. So he's got a lot of weapons out there. I think probably one of his most unappreciated ones is his mentality. He's such a calm guy out there. I don't know what he's feeling, but he certainly makes it look very easy. He plays with a freedom, which kind of tells you as a competitor that he's probably not feeling a ton of the bad stuff.”
It’s been a period of transition for Rose over the last few years, both professionally and personally. He reunited with his caddie, Mark “Fooch” Fulcher, after an acrimonious break-up that lasted three years. He emerged as a Ryder Cup hero for Team Europe in Italy. He had to go through qualifying to get into this year’s Open. As his kids have grown up, his skills have slipped a bit, and those dueling realities have sent him to a reflective place.
“I would say life's been harder for sure the last five, six years in terms of parenting and kids getting older, obviously more entrenched,” Rose said. “They're less mobile. They can't travel as much. There's more demands on us as a family. I have a feeling we're going to come through the other side where in the not too distant future it's going to get easier where the kids don't want to know you anymore. Dad, crack on, do what you need to do.”
The silver lining, he admitted, is that his kids now get a chance to see flashes of the golfer their father was in his prime. It’s not just stories about the past.
“Obviously they're very philosophical,” Rose said. “They get it. They know it's hard. But yeah, you want them to see you as a winner. They know that, and they know all that stuff. But, yeah, as I get older, it would be kind of cool to share that with them as well.”
The night they won the PGA Championship, Xander Schauffele and his caddie, Austin Kaiser, were up late in Louisville drinking whiskey. It was a drinking session that was a long time coming. “Everything was closed, so we got two bottles and almost polished them off between the six of us,” Kaiser said. Their friend group always tried to be honest with each other, and now that Xander had finally won a major championship, one of them wanted Schauffele to answer an important question:
Do you feel lighter now?
“I remember Xander smiled and was like: ‘Yeah, I do,” Kaiser said. “Being the best golfer that hasn’t won a major isn’t something you really want to live with. It means you’re an amazing golfer, but you also haven’t lived up to it. Now that he’s won two, it’s more like ‘Let’s stack them up now.”
It would not be accurate to say that Kaiser always knew this day was coming. He and Schauffele have been having long, reflective discussions for years about why they couldn’t seem to break through in major championships. Prior to winning PGA at Valhalla, Schauffele had finished in the Top 10 at majors eleven times, but that meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. What were they missing? Why were they coming up short?
“You doubt yourself,” Kaiser said. “I doubted myself. I’m like: What can I do to get this kid over the top? We looked back at all our majors together and it seemed like we just needed one break. Once bounce here or there. If we get that bounce, we win the tournament. It’s so hard to win out here, and Scottie has made it look easy. But at the PGA, we lipped that putt in. That was the break we were looking for. Otherwise, we’re in a playoff, and who knows what happens.”
Kaiser said Schauffele’s 11th hole on Sunday turned out to be a break of similar significance. He pulled his drive a bit left of his target, and the two of them held their breath, worried it was headed for the gorse. Instead, the ball landed softly and came to rest in the rough. From there, Schauffele hit a majestic short-iron that came to rest 2 feet, 8 inches from the pin. A birdie on the hardest hole of the championship was exactly the spark he needed.
“That was a turning point,” Kaiser said. “If that ball goes into the gorse, we probably don’t win this tournament.”
Schauffele followed the birdie on 11 with birdies on 13, 14 and 16 and left no doubt about the outcome.
“I was looking at the boards all day,” Schauffele said. “I've tried it in the past where I haven't done it, but at Valhalla, I was looking at them all day, and I really wanted to embrace it. That's what I did there, so I told myself to do the same thing here. Really just look at it and embrace it and take it for what it is.”
When Schauffele walked off the 18th green on Sunday, he hugged his brother, Nico, his mother Ping Yi, and then his father, Stefan. His father — who once embraced his nickname, “The Ogre” — could not disguise his emotions. His lower lip started to quiver, and he had to fight back tears. He wasn’t there for his son’s first major win, having promised to give him some space to figure the next phase out himself. You’ll be there for the next one, Xander promised him.
“I withdrew myself intentionally,” Stefan Schauffele said. “And everyone thought he fired me!”
Instead, Stefan knew it was time for his son to find his own way. Chris Como took over as his swing coach, Stefan’s brother-in-law took over as Xander’s manager, and Stefan went to work on building a home in Hawaii. His work, as far as he was concerned, was done.
“It’s not very exciting, honestly,” Stefan Schauffele said. “We had a plan and we executed it. I am obviously emotional, but he’s not as stoic and boring as you might think. We all have doubts inside of us. And obviously you guys [in the media] do a great job of making someone have a little bit of tightening in the rear end. Maybe that’s why they miss a few shots.”
All of that, however, feels irrelevant once you’re drinking from the Claret Jug.
“We’re going to try and find a good red wine,” Stefan Schauffele said. “It’s a claret jug. If you put beer in it, that’s sacrilege.”
Kevin Van Valkenburg is the Editorial Director at No Laying Up
Email him at kvv@nolayingup.com
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