LOUISVILLE, Ky. — He says it so many times you stop believing him. First it was “just Thursday.” Then it was “just 36 holes.” Then it was “just another result.” No, really, it’s just another result. Xander Schauffele either truly cares this little or cares so much he has to push it away deeper and deeper so nobody in the world ever knows how much he wants to win this thing.
He walks each hole like it’s just another hole. He plays the course like it’s just another tournament. Step. Swing one arm. Step. Swing the other arm. Schauffele is this good because he operates this way, a 30-year-old golf robot who keeps his head down and treats golf like an Excel sheet, and to some, he can’t win more than he does for the very same reason.
Until he steps to the 6-foot putt with his legacy on the line. He’s nervous, he admits. He sees a left-to-right break. Wait, no, is it right to left? He goes back and forth. “Oh my gosh, this is not what I want for a winning putt,” he thinks. If he makes it, he wins the PGA Championship. If he misses, he makes a short par putt and goes to a playoff. If he loses that, he’s cemented as this era’s quasi-Greg Norman coming closer and closer without a major, giving away a two-shot lead on the back nine.
He plays it straight, and it does go left. So left it catches the lip of the hole, and from there Schauffele practically blacks out for a moment, not even processing the putt of his life falling. He simply hears the roar of the Valhalla Golf Club crowd and feels nothing but relief. He throws his arms into the air.
“Just so much relief,” he says.
And then the robot breaks. He smiles. He can’t stop smiling. The edges of his teeth are pushing out the side of his face and it just won’t go away. He turns away, turns back and throws his fists back up with the crowd, the smile not going anywhere.
This was not just another result. Xander Schauffele wanted this.
Schauffele went to shake his caddie Austin Kaiser’s hand seven days prior in Charlotte, after Rory McIlroy had finished annihilating them in the signature event Wells Fargo Championship.
“We’re gonna get one soon, kid,” Schauffele said.
The putt. The moment. The victory. 🏆#PGAChamp | @XSchauffele pic.twitter.com/C6aT7BMvfv
— PGA Championship (@PGAChampionship) May 20, 2024
To the rest of the golf world, Sundays were becoming a thing for Schauffele. See, Schauffele has arguably been the most consistent golfer in the world the last seven years. He’s just 30 and has racked up over 100 top-20s. He seemingly finishes between second and 10th every week. He won the Tour Championship as a rookie and just stayed there, always among the 5-10 best players in the world.
But he couldn’t win more. Not just majors. Anything. Schauffele was playing tournaments toward the tops of leaderboards more than almost all his peers, yet, for whatever reason, he’d go two or three years between wins. He had just six career PGA Tour wins entering Sunday. Consistency was both Schauffele’s superpower and the hindrance making him a perennial disappointment. No matter how you spun it, Schauffele was the best player without a major. And it was not received as a compliment.
At first, he was just the guy who didn’t quite grab his opportunities, not a choker, per se. But recently, the narrative changed. He won twice in his eight career events with either the lead or a share of it. Three different times this season — at Riviera, the Players and Quail Hollow — he teed off in the final group on a Sunday. In all three, he faded down the stretch.
“All those calls for me, even last week, that sort of feeling, it gets to you at some point,” Schauffele said Sunday night. “It just makes this even sweeter.”
GO DEEPER
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