THE BIGGEST NAME IN AMERICAN GOLF IS XANDER SCHAUFFELE, NOT SCHEFFLER
When we wondered if he’d ever win a major, he has won two this year, meaning the best in our country will carry the sport beyond Tiger Woods — with U.S. players winning the last seven big tournaments
His name is Schauffele, not Scheffler. Xander Schauffele has won The Open and the PGA championship in two months. He’s an American from San Diego, born to a mother from Taiwan and a father from Stuttgart. Scottie Scheffler was supposed to dominate golf this year and won the Masters in April.
Only the start of a syllable has remained.
“I can’t wait to drink out of it,” Schauffele said of the Claret Jug.
When he won his first career major in Louisville, Schauffele received text messages from Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and Stephen Curry. In Paris, he returns to Olympic competition as the defending gold medalist. He’s the biggest player in America, at the moment, and when we mention Scheffler as the heir to the Tiger Beast, do not forget Schauffele. He loves playing on the links, and when the rains and winds invaded Royal Troon on Saturday, he refused to focus on the weather. He’s a Californian, remember.
“You just really have to keep your head down and try to worry about yourself. There are times where you have to have a good attitude, and there are times you have to have brute force and feel like you’re forcing a situation,” Schauffele said. “As they say, brute force is not something that’s sustainable. You kind of had to tap into a little bit of that.”
He resumed Sunday with a 65, meaning America has swept all four major events with Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau. When the year began, people wondered if Schauffele ever would win a big one. His family and friends peppered him with support, telling him, “You’re going to get this done.” Now we wonder how many more big ones remain. We ask about the U.S. future as Woods fades and Keegan Bradley captains the 2025 Ryder Cup team. Maybe the world should be nervous.
“Oh, man. I dreamed about this for a long time. It’s something all of us play for,” Schauffele said. “I’m from San Diego. I don’t know how you guys manage this course and make it look as good as it does.”
For the longest time, somewhere in Scotland between Mossblown and Stanecastle by the Firth of Clyde, it seemed the 152nd British Open would be won by Daniel Brown. He’s the son of a Yorkshire pig farmer who, at 29, lives at home with his parents. On the 18th hole of the third round, he smoked a cigarette in the deep rough and posed with fans for photos. He was in the hunt, saying, “If you’d told me I would be going into the final round one or two shots back, I would have ripped your hand off.” He played the final round with Scheffler, yet both waned. Also contending was jug-bellied Thriston Lawrence, a South African, who’d never finished higher in a major than a tie for 42nd.
At least we finished with a fun story. We don’t have to focus on Rory McIlroy, who missed the cut and might never win another major after 10 years of waiting. “Twenty-two holes into the event and I’m thinking about where I’m going to go on vacation next week,” he said, in a year when he overcame marital woes and blew the U.S. Open. He’ll be in the Olympics, too, but he’ll carry the usual havoc. Weeks ago, McIlroy cleared his head by walking the High Line in Manhattan. What’s next, the vicious hike on the Inca trail to Machu Picchu?
Nearing 49, Woods could join him. He won’t play until December, when he joins son Charlie in a father-son event. Must I bring up numbers? Since 2021, he has played 39 rounds and shot in the 60s only five times. He finished over par in nine of his 10 major rounds this year.
“I’ve always loved playing major championships,’’ he said. “I just wish I was more physically sharp coming into the majors. Obviously, it tests you mentally, physically, emotionally, and I just wasn’t as sharp as I needed to be. I was hoping that I would find it somehow, just never did. Consequently, my results and scores were pretty high.
“I just need to keep progressing like that and then eventually start playing more competitively and start getting into kind of the competitive flow again.’’
If he does, which is unlikely, he will face a Schauffele and a Scheffler. He also meets DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Wyndham Clark and Brian Harman, who have stretched U.S. winners of major tournaments to seven straight. That hasn’t happened in 47 years.
Tiger who? Someone will ask.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.