EXCLUSIVEAdvice from an ‘Ogre’ father, a text from Tiger Woods and tequila in the Claret Jug: The secrets behind Xander Schauffele’s remarkable year as he bids to retain his Olympics crown
Taking the PGA Championship and The Open has ended talk of his near misses
Xander Schauffele is beaming a grin through the laptop screen from his holiday in Portugal, but there’s a sleepiness in his eyes. The story of cause and effect is encapsulated within the item on the table behind him.
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It’s been one week since the American won The Open and one night since his latest repurposing of the Claret Jug.
‘So my dad is quite a traditional guy,’ Schauffele tells Mail Sport. ‘My dad’s view is that red wine goes in the Claret Jug and nothing else. Well, he’s not here, is he? Some tequila may have got into it last night.’
This is Schauffele’s pause for breath in an astonishing season. He will imminently head to Paris to defend his Olympic title, but for now there is the warm satisfaction of knowing he will never need to answer those same questions about near misses in the majors. Taking the US PGA Championship and The Open in the space of nine weeks ended that conversation quite emphatically.
‘I’m just really, really, really happy,’ he says, and with that comes a Tiger Woods tale. It is has been a recurring joke in the sport that it takes winning a major to get a text from Woods and Schauffele’s messages are adding up.
In the space of nine months, Xander Schauffele (pictured) has silenced talks of his near misses
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In the space of nine months, Xander Schauffele (pictured) has silenced talks of his near misses
His victory at Royal Troon last week has encapsulated what’s been a sensational season
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His victory at Royal Troon last week has encapsulated what’s been a sensational season
After waiting so long to win a major, Schauffele (pictured) would clinch the PGA Championship in May before reigning victorious at Royal Troon
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After waiting so long to win a major, Schauffele (pictured) would clinch the PGA Championship in May before reigning victorious at Royal Troon
‘Tiger sent one along the lines of, “Champion Golfer of the year, take it in.” Just how cool is that?
‘At Troon I played my first two rounds with him. I didn’t see him at all on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, so the first time I saw him was on Thursday, and he looked at me, and he goes, “How’s it feel?” I wasn’t sure what he meant at first, and then I was like, “Oh, he’s talking about the fact that I have won a major now”.
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‘I’m laughing just thinking about it. I feel over the moon sitting here with two and I mean, he has 15. It’s pretty humbling when you start to compare yourself to someone like that to one of the best to ever touch a club. But again, I am just so happy.’
It speaks to golf’s habit of rewarding hot streaks in a cluttered calendar that Schauffele has so rapidly reshaped the discussion around Scottie Scheffler’s domination of the past two years. No one is quicker than Schauffele to kill off that idea – ‘I always say this but Scottie is on top of this mountain and he is way ahead of us climbing up on the side’ – but with his two majors sufficient to match Scheffler’s two Masters titles a credible challenge has been presented by the 30-year-old.
It is a symptom of Schauffele’s understated public presence that his rise in the game might have caught casual viewers off guard. A bigger mistake would be to think he is dull or boring. Within golf, such mislabelling does not exist around a compelling individual, who finished top-10 in 12 of his 24 majors prior to winning the US PGA in May and whose arrival to this point is largely the work of a gregarious man who refers to himself as the Ogre.
Xander Schauffele describes winning British Open as ‘dream come true’
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‘My ball helped. I changed at the start of the year, used a Callaway Chrome Tour, and this thing just did not wobble’
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‘My ball helped. I changed at the start of the year, used a Callaway Chrome Tour, and this thing just did not wobble’
This week, the American is out to defend his Olympic gold medal at Le Golf National in Paris
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This week, the American is out to defend his Olympic gold medal at Le Golf National in Paris
Schauffele was seen embracing his father, Stefan, after winning at Royal Troon last week, a former decathlete
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Schauffele was seen embracing his father, Stefan, after winning at Royal Troon last week, a former decathlete
The golfer and his dad have plotted his rise meticulously, with Schauffele adding the pair smoked a cigar after the Open
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The golfer and his dad have plotted his rise meticulously, with Schauffele adding the pair smoked a cigar after the Open
That would be Schauffele’s father, Stefan, the former decathlete who is often found under a Panama hat and has been around for almost every stroke of his son’s career, as guru, swing coach, parent. The exception was the US PGA Championship win in Kentucky – Schauffele Snr was 4,000 miles away building a self-sufficient compound on a 22-acre plot in Hawaii and living in a shipping container without a television. He was crying at Troon when his son got hold of the jug.
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‘He has been massive in my career,’ says Schauffele of a father who introduced him to cognac and cigars on his 12th birthday. They have fought and argued and together they have plotted this rise meticulously.
‘When we got back to the house after The Open, we sat there and we smoked a cigar together. We had the trophy out there and he gets emotional any time he looks at it. He comes off kind of brash and mean at times, but he’s just a big teddy bear.
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‘He has driven so much for me.’
Indeed, it was at Schauffele’s Snr’s instruction that his son began listing what he wanted to achieve in the game in his early teens. One of those items is halfway to fruition for the world No 2.
Under his dad’s instruction, Schauffele has began listing out what he wants to achieve in golf
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Under his dad’s instruction, Schauffele has began listing out what he wants to achieve in golf
His goal is to win the career grand slam, something he has wanted since the age of 13, and is now only two titles away from doing so
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His goal is to win the career grand slam, something he has wanted since the age of 13, and is now only two titles away from doing so
The US Ryder Cup star also opened up on winning gold in Tokyo, stating it ‘was huge for me’
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The US Ryder Cup star also opened up on winning gold in Tokyo, stating it ‘was huge for me’
‘The career slam has always been written down as something I’ve wanted,’ he says. ‘Getting to two after not having one for such a long time is something that feels really good. Expectations can be a mean thing and I think all people in sport have a certain amount of cortisol in the body. You stress, you get anxious, have hard times. I have. So to get to two is great, and it makes me remember writing this stuff down with my dad at 13 or 14 – number one player in the world, majors, all these things.’
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To see it pay off at Troon was spectacular for the manner in which Schauffele dismantled one of the toughest tests in golf. His 69 in disgusting weather on the Saturday was a masterclass; a bogey-free 65 to see off Justin Rose on the Sunday was one of the finest closing rounds in recent history. Winning on the links in those kinds of conditions is rightly a point of distinction when discussing the game’s best players.
‘That Saturday, wow,’ he says. ‘That was a bloodbath. That was mental golf, dogfight golf as I call it – it’s ugly, it’s going to feel bad, it’s going to look bad, and you just need to make it a little bit better than everyone else’s bad. I felt I’m going to dog my way through this entire 18 holes in the rain and wind.
‘I sort of tapped into a different bit of my brain and I am glad I showed I could. Everything came together. This is a technical point, but my ball helped. I changed at the start of the year, used a Callaway Chrome Tour, and this thing just did not wobble. I am just watching this ball go through the windows I visualised and stay there on the line. What I’m saying is about confidence and a lot went into that.
‘By the time we got to Sunday, I was calm. I had got a huge monkey off my back winning the PGA and I said when I got to Troon that my advantage would come if I was in the hunt on Sunday. It gave me the sense of calmness on Sunday on the back nine that I can do this.’
The first round of the men’s tournament will start on Friday but Schauffele will be competing against a field that is crammed with talent
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The first round of the men’s tournament will start on Friday but Schauffele will be competing against a field that is crammed with talent
But taking heed of the wisdom of his decathlete dad, Schauffele’s approach to golf has brought remarkable results and could yield another Olympic medal
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But taking heed of the wisdom of his decathlete dad, Schauffele’s approach to golf has brought remarkable results and could yield another Olympic medal
The next challenge is a fascinating one. Golf only returned to the Olympics in 2016 after a 96-year absence, so it wouldn’t be mistaken for a core priority in a sport where the majors are king. To Schauffele, the link is a little tighter owing to Stefan, who aspired to compete in the Games for Germany until a car accident left him blind in one eye aged 20.
‘Winning gold in Tokyo was huge for me,’ Schauffele says. ‘It was one of those times when I wasn’t winning a lot of tournaments and then you beat a great field. I have the podium photo – it was obviously Covid, so I’m there with my medal and wearing a mask.
‘With my dad desperately wanting to be an Olympian himself, I grew up knowing what the Games mean. There’s a serious family tie for me – I think my dad’s grandfather even competed in the hammer throw. Sharing that win with my dad in Tokyo was so cool, but the decathlon thing has played a big part in my golf.
‘My dad’s philosophies are all based around that – he would explain that my golf game was like a decathlete, that you don’t need to be all-world at one thing. You just need to be good, solid at all things, which is the decathlete approach.’
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For Schauffele and the Ogre in his corner, it is an approach that has yielded a remarkable year and a tequila-scented jug.
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