Steter Tropfen höhlt den Stein. The German proverb, roughly translated into English, means: Regular dripping caves the stone. It seems in different languages and literary types, however this iteration caught with Xander Schauffele as a boy.
It’s the one Schauffele’s father, Stefan, reiterated till it seeped into his vocabulary. From the onset of Schauffele’s relationship with golf, motivational allegories and philosophical adages have been fed into his psyche. That’s how his father thinks and speaks. It turned how the son thinks and speaks, how Schauffele constructed the thoughts and recreation that gained two main championships in a single summer season.
Schauffele’s rise was sluggish and incremental, steadied by the omnipresent hand of his father, who doubled as his swing coach from pre-junior golf to the PGA Tour.
The character of Schauffele’s climb was precisely what critics pointed to because the potential downfall of his profession. When you have been taught to lurk, might you win? When you have been bred to embrace being an underdog, would it not sting at all times being within the prime 10 however by no means lifting the trophy?
Schauffele didn’t need to say it then, however he’ll admit it now. These questions reverberated in his thoughts because the shut calls stacked up, because the PGA Tour wins got here however he turned a supporting actor within the majors: All the time on the leaderboard, by no means on prime of it.
Then he did it. Twice. In 2024, Schauffele shut down a festering, years-long narrative: He gained the PGA and Open Championships, and abruptly went from being the best-not-to-win one to a participant two trophies away from a profession grand slam.
It was at all times in his unconscious, however he needed to bear in mind. There was speculated to be a course of — a gradual drip. The query was whether or not he would persist, and whether or not he’d consider.
“Possibly there was extra self-belief this 12 months than ever. And possibly it took me time to get to that time,” Schauffele says. “Everybody’s speculated to consider in themselves, everybody’s speculated to think about themselves successful. I feel till you really try this and it’s truly a real factor, you gained’t actually see it by way of. You may say these phrases, however for me, I used to be truly feeling able to win.”
This counts as revelatory for Schauffele, an admission of one thing apart from resolute energy for a 31-year-old who walks the course with a assured swagger. Unwavering consistency was at all times what Schauffele meant to be his ticket to the highest, and it confirmed within the development of his recreation. When you choose it by superior statistics, he was already essentially the most constant participant in golf. However in 2024 he made bogey or worse on solely 9.4 p.c of his holes — setting a brand new PGA Tour file, eclipsing Tiger Woods’ all-time 2000 season.
“I grew this 12 months, however for essentially the most half I’ve been form of making ready myself my complete life for these moments,” Schauffele says.
Stefan might see what was coming earlier than Schauffele. A 12 months in the past, celebrating Christmas in San Diego, the daddy/coach sat down with the son/protege for a one-on-one dialog. Finish-of-year transitions at all times really feel pivotal to Stefan. Time to take accountability. To craft function.
He checked out Schauffele, days earlier than the pair would journey to Hawaii for the 2024 opening match, and got here ahead with a proclamation: “The group is prepared so that you can win a significant.”
Then he stepped away, changing into simply dad.
For this subsequent stage of life, Stefan determined to maneuver as distant as attainable from his youthful son, which is why he finds himself pausing mid-sentence on the sight of a pod of whales breaching within the Pacific Ocean.
Standing on a plot of farmland in Kauai, Hawaii, Stefan is engaged on constructing a household compound. The “Ogre,” as he’s identified on the PGA Tour, at all times sporting a fedora, black shades and a linen polo, timed his expedition deliberately.
For a 12 months and a half, Stefan lived in a 20-foot delivery container with no electrical energy, scorching water or rest room, away from his spouse and Xander’s mom, Ping-Yi, for months at a time. He just lately moved onto a second piece of property that features a actual home, so she will go to extra typically, and a warehouse, so tradesmen can come out and in from Hawaii’s mainland to help the venture.
Stefan is making ready the land to develop tuberous roots, like taro, araimo and satoimo. He’ll plant avocado bushes for an oil provide. All the pieces might be prepared for the Schauffeles in two to 3 years, good timing for his or her grandchildren to play with the animals. Sure, there might be livestock — Shetland ponies and miniature highland cows. Xander and his older brother, Nico, aren’t allowed to see it till it’s carried out.
Stefan Schauffele, left, held twin roles in Xander’s life: Father and coach. That modified in 2024. (Andrew Redington / Getty Pictures)
There’s a imaginative and prescient. There’s a course of. It started with the choice to step away from being Xander’s coach, a departure he wished had occurred sooner. He knew the time would come, when he might now not serve his son’s wants in his experience. The query of find out how to make the transition was more durable.
Which is why as Xander lifted his first main championship trophy, Stefan was nearer to Tokyo than Louisville, Ky., resigned to look at the second on tv from certainly one of Hawaii’s farthest outlying islands.
“I can not clarify to you ways shut (Xander and I) are,” he says. “It’s silly. I needed to actually do what I’m doing proper now so as to create separation.”
An completed decathlete in his prime, Stefan cultivated his son’s aggressive drive the one approach he knew. “He mainly handled me as a younger professional from a very younger age,” Xander says.
The daddy considered golf as a multidisciplinary recreation, identical to his 10-event sport. Stefan took a lot pleasure in his will to win, he used uncommon techniques in an effort to deliver it out of his son — ones he knew shouldn’t be carried out in most parent-child relationships.
“I needed to discover methods for Xander to overtly oppose me and battle with me, not bodily, however oppose me strongly. I labored arduous on that, typically with unfair strategies: I’d cheat in ping pong till he acquired so upset that he began standing as much as me at a reasonably younger age,” Stefan says.
A bond of mutual respect led to persistence changing into a part of Xander’s nature. That was the precursor to the daddy and son’s on-course relationship and to Xander’s trek to the highest.
As a boy, Stefan requested his son if he wished to be like Fred {Couples} or Tiger Woods. Play the sport by really feel or examine its intricacies? Xander selected the latter. He wished to know all the things concerning the mechanics of his swing. Stefan would clarify the ideas to him, however he needed to show the premise of his data with proof. Xander acted with the sort of stubbornness that Stefan felt was essential. In flip, Xander listened to his father’s philosophies about demeanor and physique language. All of it linked again to a central precept.
If you’re enjoying alone — Stefan would ask his son — on a golf course in the course of a forest, and also you miss a three-foot putt, are you going to throw a tantrum? “The reply isn’t any. Once you do it on TV, it’s all pretend. It’s all an act. We minimize out all the performing and the fakeness,” Schauffele mentioned.
“Golf is an extended profession,” he continued. “You may nearly assure that anyone that’s pretentious will finally undergo some sort of defeat by his personal ego.”
Xander Schauffele’s PGA Championship win made even the stoic Schauffele smile. (Ross Kinnaird / Getty Pictures)
The identical themes have been hammered into Xander’s thoughts by way of faculty golf, the Net.com Tour and the PGA Tour.
On the qualifier for the 2017 U.S. Open, a PGA Tour rookie Schauffele was paired with Steve Stricker, the latter vying for a spot within the nationwide championship in his dwelling state, Wisconsin’s Erin Hills. He watched because the 50-year-old put collectively a string of birdies within the latter half of the 36-hole day, turning a sluggish begin right into a spotlight reel. It was the proper microcosm of the outdated German proverb. Stefan’s lurk-in-the-shadows technique had come to life. Schauffele was simply lastly seeing it for himself.
Schauffele certified for that U.S. Open too, leading to a tie for fifth place in his first main begin. Three weeks later, he gained his first PGA Tour occasion.
“Stricker didn’t panic when issues weren’t going his approach. He stayed the course, and unexpectedly rattled off eight or 9 birdies and he was main the match. The place did that come from? For me, my profession doesn’t really feel too dissimilar from that form of mentality,” Schauffele says.
Schauffele was by no means “the man.” He’s certainly one of 16 gamers to win The Open and one other main in a single 12 months, and he nonetheless isn’t. When his friends have been requested to call the PGA Tour Participant of the Yr, 91 p.c mentioned Scottie Scheffler.
An outstanding 12 months by anybody’s requirements has in some way nonetheless left him steeped in a shadow, forged by the doubtless generational expertise, Scheffler.
However Schauffele’s recreation wasn’t designed for him to be “the man.” Persistence means evolution. And evolution isn’t at all times flashy.
When Schauffele appeared to be caught because the participant at all times hanging across the prime 5 on a leaderboard, he might have stopped there. As a substitute, he continued to push, as he has at all times been taught to do.
Generally that push — the artwork of by no means being happy — requires robust selections. On the finish of 2023, the Schauffeles employed Chris Como, a number one skilled golf teacher, to the internal circle that from the skin regarded prefer it might by no means be cracked. A private coach, David Sundberg, and a physiotherapist, Marnus Marais, got here on board too. Stefan backed away. He retreated, actually, into the jungle.
In 2024, Schauffele’s new group and improved course of helped him acquire 10 yards off the tee, that means shorter iron pictures, extra birdies, and in flip, the large wins. However actually, Schauffele might hold issues rolling till that epiphany. That’s what acquired him there.
“Once you’re so shut, it’s such a finite factor. You’re attempting to enhance by 1 / 4 of a shot in a sure a part of your recreation,” Schauffele says. “It doesn’t look like a lot on paper, nevertheless it might do the world of distinction over the course of a 12 months.”
Schauffele’s lacking self-belief was present in his course of.
“I feel mentally, coping with all the things that led as much as this 12 months — failing and failing and having everybody say you’re probably among the best to have by no means gained a significant, not less than on this trendy period, all these issues lastly have been simply sort of put to relaxation,” Schauffele says.
Now he’s getting into new territory. The Schauffeles consider progress with a year-over-year eye. Since first rising on tour in 2017, Schauffele has hardly ever regressed within the official world golf rankings. He’s primarily maintained or improved his place, steadily. However now he’s No. 2.
Heading into The Sentry, the opening occasion of the 2025 PGA Tour season at Kapalua, Hawaii, this week because the second-best participant on the earth, Schauffele has a chance. Eighty-four weeks right into a world No. 1 streak that has put Scheffler on a seemingly unreachable peak, he’s out with an injured hand. Stefan might be lingering near his son in Hawaii, taking a break from his Kauai camp to quickly fill in as Schauffele’s supervisor. However as meant, the connection is totally different. Schauffele is enjoying the most effective golf of his life. He’s in management.
“It’s loopy. I’m tremendous fired as much as go follow. I’m tremendous fired as much as go see my coach. I’m tremendous fired as much as get to Hawaii,” Schauffele says. “I feel it’s my eighth or ninth 12 months on tour. And I’m nonetheless feeling that approach.”
If there was ever a time to hold on, it’s now. Schauffele is prepared for it. He is able to hold caving the stone.
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Images: Ben Jared / PGA Tour, Tom Shaw / R&A through Getty Pictures)
