TROON, Scotland — One has to ask oneself certain things when everything is right there, so damn close, but still seemingly so out of reach. That was Xander Schauffele. For a long time. Seven years spent as a recurring character in other players’ winning scripts.
Talent wasn’t the problem. You don’t post 12 top-10s and two runner-up finishes in a span of 26 majors by dumb luck. You don’t spend the majority of your late 20s ranked among the 10 best players in the world because you’ve got a little game.
So Schauffele needed to weigh what he wanted versus what he had. Those near-miss majors all ended the same way; with him, his father and coach Stefan Schauffele, and caddie Austin Kaiser, having various versions of the same conversation. How did this happen again? What went wrong? Why? How? As Kaiser remembers: “At the end of the day, you have to be realistic. Like, what was it? Was it a bad decision? Or was it bad execution?”
Of all the psychological tripwires that come with golf, these are maybe the most vexing for the man in the arena. He is, in reality, both the player and the manager and the owner of all results. There’s no divvying up ultimate responsibility when the sport entails standing over a stationary ball and hitting it yourself. But the forces around you are there for a reason. Because you choose for them to be. So when do you stick it out? When do you make a change? Maybe a new caddie could bring a new voice, a new eyes? Maybe a reordered reality to change results? Maybe a new swing coach can unlock some solutions? Maybe new ideas poured over old fundamentals?
There’s no easy way, and in the most solitary of individual sports, there are no easy choices.
But sometimes there are the right decisions at the right time.
And sometimes they bring you to the 18th green at Royal Troon, and the Claret Jug, and to Xander Schauffele suddenly being a two-time major winner.
Stefan Schauffele has long been one of professional golf’s most recognizable characters. It’s the look — linen shirts, a panama hat, a ponytail. It’s the background — a former German decathlete whose Olympic dreams were dashed as a younger man, when a drunk driver slammed into his car, leaving him nearly blind. It’s the unorthodox style — a self-taught golfer turned instructor who coached his son to the pinnacle of the game.
It was also the mere fact that Stefan Schauffele was always there. Every tournament. On the range. In the background. Coach. Father. There’s Xander. There’s Stefan.
Stefan, left, and Xander Schauffele hug after Xander finished his final round at the Open Championship. (Andrew Redington / Getty Images)
The two were long on a path that’s common in this game — the parent who coaches the child who, as life goes, eventually grows older. Xander Schauffele turned 30 last October. He’s been married for three years. He’s played professional golf for nine years.
Eventually, the decision was going to need to be made. Stay the course or bring in a new voice?
This year ended up being the inflection point. Schauffele reached out to Chris Como, whose coaching career includes Tiger Woods, Jason Day, Bryson DeChambeau, Tom Kim, Trevor Immelman and others. The goal wasn’t to rebuild Schauffele’s swing but to maximize it. They set out to add speed. They worked on getting Schauffele’s swing positions into better spots, finding a more reliable swing path and eliminating his tendency to flatten out and guide the ball.
The move to Como was needed but also came with the obvious corollary.
What about dad?
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As it goes with such moments, this was a change that could come with grace or create tension, the kind of tension that takes on a life of its own. Rumors bubbled through the early season that Schauffele had fired his father, despite both maintaining that it was a group decision. The move came after a winless 2023 season and a 1-3-0 showing in the Ryder Cup. It was easy to draw conclusions.
In response to growing curiosity, Stefan wanted Xander and Como to work together without distraction — “to breathe,” he said Sunday — and moved to Hawaii with his wife, Xander’s mom, Ping-Yi. It wasn’t a separation, as much as it allotted space for change to occur.
So that’s where Stefan Schauffele watched the PGA Championship in May. Not by Xander’s side. But instead in the middle of the Pacific. He watched from afar as his son finally put all the pieces together to win a first major. Xander immediately called his dad after walking off the final green. Stefan answered bawling crying.
This Sunday felt like the more fitting moment of Schauffele’s career coming to fruition. The entire family — dad, mom, brother, wife — was in Scotland this week. Stefan was behind the 18th hole as the winning putt dropped. White shirt and tan pants standing out among the green below and the gray sky above. He saw Xander become the first player since 2014 to win two majors in a year.
Hard choices were a means to an end. Stefan on Sunday said Como, was “able to immediately answer what we were looking for years.”
An easy decision, if you look at it that way. All it took was those hard choices.
Austin Kaiser met Xander Schauffele toward the end of 2012. Kaiser was 20, arriving at San Diego State as a transfer from Allan Hancock Community College in Santa Maria, Calif. Schauffele was a transfer from Long Beach State. Both arrived with dreams of playing pro golf.
Schauffele played three years, ending up as an all-conference-caliber player. Kaiser? Not so much. A middling college career culminated with him making an eight on the 18th hole of the Western Intercollegiate at Pasatiempo — the last hole of the last tournament of his senior year regular season. Kaiser finished T-83 out of 91 players. He decided, right then, that his pro pursuits were over.
“I was realistic about my dreams,” he says now.
Kaiser decided to be a cop. Holding a criminal justice degree from San Diego State, he applied for the police academy in San Diego County and assumed golf was behind him.
Plans changed about a month before Kaiser was scheduled to take the polygraph test to enter the academy. Schauffele, by now his closest friend, called and asked for a favor. He needed a caddie in some upcoming events.
Open to adventure, Kaiser bounced the idea of his then-girlfriend, now-wife. She gave the green light. So off the two went, Schauffele and Kaiser, traveling the country in the latter’s Honda Accord. The car was packed with clothes, clubs and a hot plate.
They started out on what was then called the Golden State Tour (now the Asher Tour) and made their way through qualifying school for the larger tours. They reached the PGA Tour in 2017.
Then came success. Four wins from 2017 through 2019.
Then came major tournament success. Five top-six finishes in the same span.
Then came expectations.
Then the drought.
“Two and a half years without a win,” Kaiser said Sunday, thinking back, a slight shake of the head.
The greatest walk in golf for Xander Schauffele. pic.twitter.com/xYY9yv5D1B
— The Open (@TheOpen) July 21, 2024
As the victories stopped coming and the near-misses started mounting, questions festered, asking what was wrong. Who was to blame? Why couldn’t Xander Schauffele get it done? In golf, there’s never an easier answer than the caddie, so Kaiser heard the suggestions out there, that Schauffele was too talented to be with an unproven caddie. He saw the comments on social media. He knew that outside voices were in his player’s ear, saying that it might be time for a change.
“It was like what Harry Diamond is getting right now,” Kaiser remembers, describing the heat now felt by Rory McIlroy’s longtime friend and caddie. “But it was like, clearly we’ve had success together.”
Kaiser, thinking of his pal’s best interest, wondered if they were the right fit. Some self-doubt crept in.
Ultimately, Schauffele and Kaiser had some hard talks. But Schauffele never sat Kaiser down for The Talk. “Like, hey, you’re on the chopping block,” Kaiser said. At times when other players might’ve taken the opportunity to deflect blame, lessen their burden, or make a change to appease critics, Schauffele did the opposite.
He told Kaiser to feel comfortable to do the hard the right way.
“Some guys, they caddie afraid because they’re afraid to lose their job,” Kaiser said Sunday, after the win, with his man on the way to a winning press conference. “Xander has always been the guy who says, dude, nothing you can do that would make me fire you. He wants me to caddie free because he knows that’s when I caddie the best.”
Choosing not to change is often harder than deciding.
Schauffele arrived at the 11th hole on Sunday with the Open still up for grabs. Not long ago, the man known as the best player without a major victory might’ve wilted or succumbed to a loose swing that was never fully corrected, never fully addressed.
The 11th, a 493-yard par 4 with a 4.46 scoring average played as Troon’s second-most difficult hole in the final round. At 2-under on the day and two shots out of the lead, Schauffele was in the mix but needed to make a move.
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Trusting his swing, Schauffele sent a drive down the left side of the hole. “Cut!” Kaiser said. Schauffele squinted, often the most body English he’s willing to give, and watched the ball find the land and go where it may. The bounces and bounds of links golf.
Skirting trouble, Schauffele’s ball conspired with the gods to give him a chance. With tall, gnarly grass only feet away, Schauffele’s drive sat in the rough, but very alive.
“If that ball goes in the gorse,” Kaiser said afterward, “we probably don’t win this golf tournament.”
Standing over the bag, Kaiser gave Schauffele his number — 171 yards — and then offered his advice: “Pound a pitching wedge.”
So out came the pitching wedge.
A swing. Good path. Good plane.
Shot. The right club. The right line.
To 2 feet.
Schauffele’s birdie on 11 was both the turning point of the day and the sum of the decisions it took to get him here.
He stood alone as Open champion, but there was so much more to it than that.
(Top photo of Austin Kaiser, left, and Xander Schauffele: Warren Little / Getty Images)