Xander Schauffele shook hands after being beaten by Rory McIlroy Buzzsaw in the final round of the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship last MayTh Green, along with his long-time caddie, Austin Kaiser, pulled him closer. "Kid, we'll get one soon," he said.
It's been 22 months since Schauffele's tasting victory, but that moment doesn't matter to Kaiser. His spirit is inspired by his boss's self-confidence.
"I think, yes, Xander does believe it," he said.
"Soon" arrived soon, and just seven days later, Schauffele broke the narrative, unable to close by the 18-year-old 5-foot birdie putt.Th Valhalla Golf Club's Hole ended nearly two years of invincibility. He released an impressive final match of 65 under 65, requiring 106Th PGA champion and his first major champion.
"I just heard everyone growling, and I just looked up at the sky in relaxation," Schauffele said.
The final birdie was the difference between Bryson DeChambeau and the 72 holes with 21 strokes below 21 liters, which was the lowest score for PAR in the Big Championship. Winning his eighth career PGA Tour title (he added the British Open two months later to increase to nine), demanding patience, perseverance and real courage.
Schauffele entered this week and was the only player in the world's official golf rankings, without a big champion. He had several close calls at big events, including winning the Players Championship two months ago.
"I'll lick my wounds and go back to it next week," he said after the disappointment in March. Going back to it means not letting others disturb him.
"People start talking and narrating … it's easy to listen," Chris Como said.
Schauffele was coached by his father, Stefan's Olympic Town (Decathlete), because he was still a child. Stefan would not allow Xander to watch his swing video until he thought it was perfect. But he taught him to sway, a move that seemed simple and produced very consistent results.
Stefan became one of the great characters on this tour in the travel circus. "He walked around and looked like Cuban poison." But during the Christmas holiday in 2023, Stefan sat down his son and said it was time for him to win the profession. To do this, he is ready to go backwards and become a dad.
"He felt like I was in a good place to let go of the steering wheel," Xander said.
Schauffele moved to Florida from the West Coast and began working with Como, who taught Tiger Woods and De Hamburg in the past. They did not make wholesale changes, but just made the club sit more on the plane and his shoulders were steeper. Combined with his gym work, he added another gear.
"He played further," Justin Thomas said in his PGA last year. "It's as good as he's driving, and now he's doing the same thing, with a further 15 yards."
What he's been doing starts clicking, which makes it a week before the PGA championship and is easier to swallow.
"I started to play some of my shots, like, at the time, I felt like I didn't even hit those shots for a long time or even forever," Schauffele said. "I was incredibly interested because Valhalla was next week and I heard that if there was a course from Valhalla, it was Quail How. I felt jazz and just wanted to focus on what was going on in the future, not what just happened."
His father may not lurk in the shadows during PGA week, but he still plays a big role, posting positive texts, including one of his favorite sayings on Saturday night: the stable drip cave cave. But he wrote it in GermanStett drip sank stone- Xander needs translation.
"Everything my father in my mind was fed to me by my father, maybe from some kind of German philosopher," Schauffele said. "I believe that if you work hard and let yourself do what you think you can do, then you will have some results to work. I feel like I've been walking for a long time. I really have to be patient and confident and confident, and I'm able to do both."
Schauffele is a member of the famous "Grade 2011", but he often lost his honors like everyone else in that group, among others, Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas, and collected their majors. Not that Schauffele didn't have a chance to win the hardware, including finishing the T-2 at the 2018 British Open and the 2019 Masters and recording 12 top ten in the pros.
Kaiser has a good feeling about the chances of men in Valhalla. CBS commentator and podcast host Colt Knost asked him a month ago that he thought he had won Schauffele’s caddie PGA, who worked as a teammate at San Diego State University and was appointed as the boss.
"(knost) said, 'Why do you say that?' I'm leaving,' Zoysia (grass). I was like, “He’s going to do it there,” Colt said, “I’m going to pick you up, don’t let me down.”
Schauffele set a PGA championship record with a course record of 62 under 9 and ranked fourth and 62 only in major championship history. (Shane Lowry became fifth in the third round, while Schauffele became the first player to score 62 in the Grand Slam.)
"For the rest of us, I hope he won't shoot nine more," Thomas said.
Schauffele settled for a pair of 68 seconds, ending Saturday with a continuous birdie, sharing a 54-hole lead with Collin Morikawa. This is the first time a player who has led or co-led six times in a row since Tiger Woods led or co-led six times in a row after six straight tournaments in the summer of 2000.
A tie-in ranking and soft, soft green meant Schauffele knew he had to stay aggressive on Sunday. He scored 22 for the victory, which turned into a three-horse match between Schauffele, DeChambeau and Norway's Viktor Hovland, who finished third with three points.
Schauffele walked on a 30-foot birdie putt, opening his final round. He showed the Magician's touch for the fourth time, dropping a delicate 54-yard pitch from the roughness within 5 feet. He hit a 15-foot par putt in sixth, calling it "big to me." At the age of 7, he splashed the green space front bunker on a 5-point pentagon and made another birdie putt. His lead grew into two in the 9th birdie, lifting the short iron to 11 feet and then sinking the putt to 31.
His only ic-shooting day was 5, 10, 10, and 10 shotsThwhich is the simplest hole in the route, dropped a 6-foot PAR putter. Schauffele lost the lead when Hovland was in front of him, with his third birdie stretching out four holes.
“I was like, ‘Oh boy, will this happen again?’ Schauffele recalls.
During his unbeatable drought, Schauffele tried various ways to view the rankings. This Sunday, he decided to encounter them every opportunity.
"I really want to feel everything," he said.
Play 11Th Hall, he peeked into a large board and the reality of that moment. “I thought I had the lead, so when I looked up at the board, I was like, oof, I saw Hovie at 19, so I went back to chase mode.”
It's time for Schauffele to come and play another positive message from his father, the kind of nine-year-old he once left in his scorecard to play in the junior event in Southern California: "Submit, execute, accept, accept." Schauffele bounced back from the bogey and hit under 20s 11 and 12 consecutive times.
"He showed courage, that was him as a man," Caesar said. "He was going to fight until the end."
So, Dechambeau, who was taking a chance break at No. 16 when he pulled the tee to the left and the ball spits out of the tree into the middle of the fairway.
"I said 'thank you' to the tree," DeChambeau joked. He then drilled 8 to 3 feet to improve the bird to under 19 years old and a back. DeChambeau leads the lead in the 5th 18 and wins the celebration.
Meanwhile, Schauffele constantly scrapes the par from the holes from 13 to 17. Drops of water, dripping water, dripping on the rock. When he walked to the second stroke in the final statute hole, he knew the birdie would win, and par meant the playoffs, and it was time to commit and execute again. He refused to accept the option of additional vulnerabilities.
"Bryson is making some noise and keep running," Schauffele said. "I kept telling myself, man, there are people out there who are making me make money now. I keep grinding. I get up and just laughing. I'm like, if you want to be a major champion, that's the kind of thing you have to deal with."
Schauffele's T-shirt shooting is in trouble. Schauffele stood inside the bunker of the fairway, placed the ball on the grass on his feet, choked the four irons with a 4-iron and made a baseball-like cut that had just landed on the green green on the split fairway to build a course where he hit 6 feet.
“He knows what he has to do when he is 18, and that’s what great players do,” said his game partner Morikava that day.
There are still moments of hesitation on the winning putt. Initially, when he came from the chip, he was sure he should aim to the left. But, as he settled on the ball, he wavered on the read, which suddenly became the right edge. He had a moment of panic.
"Of course, I'll have this moment when I try to win my first major," he said.
But then he reminded himself that he caught about 80% of putts from this range. He told himself to stay in his process, ignoring the fact that his hands were shaking, and that moment was not too big for him. He chose to play it directly, telling himself that the longer he thought about it, the greater the proportion of the holes. From above the blade, he thought it might tilt. His heart fell, but fortunately, he was suddenly swallowed by cheers and the monkeys.
Schauffele spread his arms and spread out toward the sky as the putter slides. He joined Phil Mickelson (2005) and Payne Stewart (1989), the only PGA champion to hit Birdie on the 72nd hole.
Before returning to the 18th Green Trophy speech, Schauffele quickly called his father: "The other three are going," his father announced that he had thought of a professional grand slam. This is one of the goals Schauffeles wrote a long time ago. “That’s how he raised me,” Shuffel said of his father. "You finally got one, why not cut a few more."
He told his wife Maya to hang up the phone because his father called on the phone, which made him too excited. The Mayans didn’t grow up around golf, but in their 11 years together, she learned what these important moments mean: She saw him celebrating the Ryder Cup victory in 2021 and the Olympic gold medal in Tokyo, but felt that he had won a professional victory even bigger.
“Winning gold is an achievement, but when I hear all these guys talking about being professional on your belt, it’s been all-time, so I think it means the world to him.”
All these collective drips finally broke the rock, closing the narrative he couldn't close, he was too soft to win the profession. But Schauffele jumped to second place in the world and he was already talking about his work being far from over. There are more boxes to check and more mountains to climb.
“I hung a good hook on the hill on that cliff and I’m still climbing,” he said. “I might be drinking beer on the hillside there and enjoying that, but it’s not hard to chase when someone goes too far.”
After verifying all his hard work at Valhalla, Schauffele set his sights on another major peak in Quail Hollow.