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 time.
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. In case you have been taught to lurk, might you win? In case you have been bred to embrace being an underdog, would it not sting at all times being within the high 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 high 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 immediately 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 imagine.
“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 imagine in themselves, everybody’s speculated to think about themselves profitable. I believe till you actually do this and it’s truly a real factor, you gained’t actually see it via. You possibly can 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 aside 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. In case you decide 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 % of his holes — setting a brand new PGA Tour document, eclipsing Tiger Woods’ all-time 2000 season.
“I grew this 12 months, however for essentially the most half I’ve been type of getting ready myself my total 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 objective.
He checked out Schauffele, days earlier than the pair would journey to Hawaii for the 2024 opening event, and got here ahead with a proclamation: “The workforce is prepared so that you can win a significant.”
Then he stepped away, turning into simply dad.
For this subsequent stage of life, Stefan determined to maneuver as far-off 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 transport container with no electrical energy, sizzling water or rest room, away from his spouse and Xander’s mom, Ping-Yi, for months at a time. He lately moved onto a second piece of property that features a actual home, so she will be able to go to extra usually, and a warehouse, so tradesmen can come out and in from Hawaii’s mainland to help the challenge.
Stefan is getting ready the land to develop tuberous roots, like taro, araimo and satoimo. He’ll plant avocado bushes for an oil provide. All the things can be prepared for the Schauffeles in two to 3 years, excellent timing for his or her grandchildren to play with the animals. Sure, there can 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 Photographs)
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 learn 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 considered one of Hawaii’s farthest outlying islands.
“I can’t 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 with the intention 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 delight in his will to win, he used uncommon ways in an effort to deliver it out of his son — ones he knew shouldn’t be applied 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 exhausting on that, typically with unfair strategies: I’d cheat in ping pong till he bought 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 turning 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 every little thing in regards to the mechanics of his swing. Stefan would clarify the ideas to him, however he needed to show the idea of his information with proof. Xander acted with the form of stubbornness that Stefan felt was needed. In flip, Xander listened to his father’s philosophies about demeanor and physique language. All of it related again to a central precept.
In case you are 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. If you do it on TV, it’s all pretend. It’s all an act. We minimize out all the performing and the fakeness,” Schauffele stated.
“Golf is an extended profession,” he continued. “You possibly can nearly assure that anyone that’s pretentious will ultimately undergo some form of defeat by his personal ego.”
Xander Schauffele’s PGA Championship win made even the stoic Schauffele smile. (Ross Kinnaird / Getty Photographs)
The identical themes have been hammered into Xander’s thoughts via school 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 house 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 previous 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 rattled off eight or 9 birdies and he was main the event. The place did that come from? For me, my profession doesn’t really feel too dissimilar from that type of mentality,” Schauffele says.
Schauffele was by no means “the man.” He’s considered 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 % stated Scottie Scheffler.
An exceptional 12 months by anybody’s requirements has someway nonetheless left him steeped in a shadow, solid 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 gave the impression to be caught because the participant at all times hanging across the high 5 on a leaderboard, he might have stopped there. As an alternative, he continued to push, as he has at all times been taught to do.
Generally that push — the artwork of by no means being glad — requires powerful selections. On the finish of 2023, the Schauffeles employed Chris Como, a number one skilled golf teacher, to the interior 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 workforce and improved course of helped him acquire 10 yards off the tee, that means shorter iron photographs, extra birdies, and in flip, the massive wins. However actually, Schauffele might maintain issues rolling till that epiphany. That’s what bought him there.
“If you’re so shut, it’s such a finite factor. You’re making an attempt to enhance by 1 / 4 of a shot in a sure a part of your recreation,” Schauffele says. “It doesn’t appear to be 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 believe mentally, coping with every little thing that led as much as this 12 months — failing and failing and having everybody say you’re doubtlessly among the best to have by no means gained a significant, a minimum of on this trendy period, all these issues lastly have been simply form 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 can be lingering near his son in Hawaii, taking a break from his Kauai camp to briefly fill in as Schauffele’s supervisor. However as meant, the connection is completely different. Schauffele is enjoying the perfect 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 believe 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 maintain caving the stone.
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Images: Ben Jared / PGA Tour, Tom Shaw / R&A by way of Getty Photographs)