After winning two major titles last year, World No. 2 Xander Schauffele is looking forward to another strong season in 2025. The nine-time PGA TOUR winner shares his thoughts in this Player Blog series.
JANUARY 14 — I’m excited for the new season, and eager to keep working hard with my entire team to get my game up to a level where we want it to be. Each member in my team has a specific role and I am grateful for their dedication and support.
The work that I’ve been doing with my swing coach, Chris Como, since last year has been coming along nicely and I’m keen to see how well we can put the full swing together. There are times when you’re trying to push your swing to a certain place or you stack two or three good weeks in a row, and then you feel really good.
Hopefully, the changes we’re working on will feel normal sooner rather than later. Just like anything else, when you take some time off, old habits die hard, so I start to shift back into old swing patterns and it feels equally as weird to get back to what Chris wants me to do, versus the first time around. It’s a work in progress.
Going into Valhalla for the PGA Championship last May, I felt really good with my game. Then, the Open Championship is a different beast as you’re trying to keep the ball in play, keep it low and leave it on the right side of the hole with the wind. It was two completely different styles of golf that cater to different things from your game and it was a lot of fun.
I’ve been very close for a very long time. I had a strong feeling after I won the PGA, just getting over that hump, that I was like give me another chance and I’m going to get it, and it was sort of how I felt at the Open and I was able to win my second major. After those wins, there was like this overwhelming amount of validation and belief that grew in me that, thank goodness, I did it and I know I can do this again.
Last season was really good, but you don’t really just focus on the wins. They stack up when you’re focused on the little things. I think that’s what the best players do is you focus on practicing and prepping the right way, and then you focus on small shots with your caddie, and at the end of the day, you give yourself a chance on the back nine. In those moments is sort of when you’ll feel a little bit more heat and if you’re comfortable or not to close. That takes a little bit of practice and luckily, I got a little bit better last year and won a few.
However, my wedge play is not where I want it to be right now. It was really, really bad but golf is tough. With my club pitched a little bit more vertical in my back swing, it’s not catering to the best. It’s great for driver, great for long irons and the stats show that but then with the wedges, the club is moving around a little bit and it’s not ideal for hitting like a distance wedge.
It’s something I’m working on, still trying to figure it out and get the right feel for it. When my shoulder was a lot flatter, the club was way more laid off and shut, and I was more rotational. I was a good wedge player, really good from inside of 150 yards. And then the club is moving a different way, up more even across, and now all of a sudden, I can smoke my driver and a 4-iron, but a 90-yard wedge is a little bit off at times.
I’m kind of cruising with where I want to be with my game. It’s a wild time. Winning two majors and being further away from Scottie Scheffler (the World No. 1 and 2024 FedExCup champion), or closer to the 30th ranked player than the 1st is hat’s off to Scottie. He’s a beast. He just kept winning last year, even in sort of his down time, he won another event, which pushed him even further away from us. So it’s one of my goals that will just have to stay on the calendar for a few more years. However, I try not to be too results-based, and from what I’m told, it’s going to take some time and some patience to catch Scottie.
I’m not trying to be a robot, I’m trying to get into a certain mindset or flow and my challenge is to see how quickly I can lock back into that mid-season sort of mentality that I had last year. After having a couple months off, it’s hard to do so and your ball ends up in weird places!
We’re all pretty competitive. We all want to beat each other pretty badly. Scottie is just such a nice guy, and I really can’t say anything bad about him, especially after what happened to him last year. I think the true colours show when you’re facing a bad spot, like when he got arrested at the PGA. He’s a 10 out of 10 guy in my opinion, so I’ve got to try and hate him somehow. If I put him at the very top of the mountain, and he’s someone that I need to catch, then maybe that’s how I have to put it in my head.
*Fans can watch the PGA TOUR and this week’s The American Express on Astro Golf Channel and DAZN.
** This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
