Xander Schauffele focused on Ryder Cup win after frustrating 2025: 'There's definitely nice ways to end seasons'
BETHPAGE, N.Y. — Xander Schauffele was unable to find words of wisdom to offer his rookie teammates at first. After a down year that saw him miss time with an injury, the now three-time Ryder Cup player might be seeking them out for advice.
“They've been kicking my ass all year and playing unbelievable golf,” Schauffele said Tuesday at Bethpage Black.
Schauffele started the season in Hawaii at The Sentry, but then missed the next two months before returning for the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March. He ultimately made 15 starts on the PGA Tour in 2025, earning three top 10s, but he missed out on the Tour Championship for the first time in his career. Two of his best showings came at majors — T8 at the Masters and T7 at The Open — a season far from 2024 when he won the PGA Championship and The Open, was runner up three times and finished fourth in the FedEx Cup standings.
As 10 of the 12 members of the U.S. team participated in last week’s Procore Championship, Schauffele missed out but for good reason as his wife, Maya, gave birth to their son at the end of August. After taking two weeks off to focus on daddy duty, he returned to golf mode by preparing for the Ryder Cup with teammate Justin Thomas. After playing Bethpage Black this week, he was pleased with how he got around the course.
“I feel like after these two days, surprisingly playing kind of nice,” Schauffele said. “I surprised myself when I came out. It was funny to get some texts from captain [Keegan Bradley] and a lot of assistant caps like ‘Hey, how you doing?’ Because I wasn't able to make [the Procore Championship]. But it was good to prepare at home on what was limited sleep but sort of a much clearer head than in season.”
Schauffele, an automatic qualifier for the U.S. team, is 4-4-0 in two Ryder Cups having gone 3-1-0 in helping the U.S. win at Whistling Straits in 2021, but then dropped three of his four matches during an American loss at Marco Simone two years ago.
It wasn’t the year Schauffele wanted to have on the PGA Tour, but after this week he’ll have time to put 2025 in the rearview mirror and focus on a fully-healthy 2026 season.
For now, however, there’s only one way he wants to head into the offseason.
“There's definitely nice ways to end seasons,” Schauffele said. “It's already been a fun start sharing the locker room with these guys and the caddies and the wives and Keegan has done a nice job of bringing everyone in as a big family. There's a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings on that front. But nothing as warm and fuzzy as winning one of these things. Baby steps; our team knows it's a process and what we need to do to get it done. It would help me forget a lot about what happened in 2025.”
