Steter Tropfen höhlt den Stein. The German proverb, roughly translated into English, means: Steady dripping wears away the stone. It appears in other languages and literary forms, but this iteration stuck with Xander Schauffele as a boy.
It’s the one Schauffele’s father, Stefan, reiterated until it seeped into his vocabulary. From the onset of Schauffele’s relationship with golf, motivational allegories and philosophical adages were fed into his psyche. That’s how his father thinks and speaks. It became how the son thinks and speaks, how Schauffele constructed the mind and game that won two major championships in one summer.
Schauffele’s rise was slow and incremental, steadied by the omnipresent hand of his father, who doubled as his swing coach from pre-junior golf to the PGA Tour.
The nature of Schauffele’s climb was exactly what critics pointed to as the potential downfall of his career. If you were taught to lurk, could you win? If you were bred to embrace being an underdog, would it sting always being in the top 10 but never lifting the trophy?
Schauffele didn’t want to say it then, but he’ll admit it now. Those questions reverberated in his mind as the close calls stacked up, as the PGA Tour wins came but he became a supporting actor in the majors: Always on the leaderboard, never on top of it.
Then he did it. Twice. In 2024, Schauffele shut down a festering, years-long narrative: He won the PGA and Open Championships, and suddenly went from being the best-not-to-win one to a player two trophies away from a career grand slam.
It was always in his subconscious, but he had to remember. There was supposed to be a process — a steady drip. The question was whether he would persist, and whether he’d believe.
“Maybe there was more self-belief this year than ever. And maybe it took me time to get to that point,” Schauffele says. “Everyone’s supposed to believe in themselves, everyone’s supposed to imagine themselves winning. I think until you truly do that and it’s actually a genuine thing, you won’t really see it through. You can say those words, but for me, I was actually feeling ready to win.”
This counts as revelatory for Schauffele, an admission of something other than resolute strength for a 31-year-old who walks the course with a confident swagger. Unwavering consistency was always what Schauffele intended to be his ticket to the top, and it showed in the progression of his game. If you judge it by advanced statistics, he was already the most consistent player in golf. But in 2024 he made bogey or worse on only 9.4 percent of his holes — setting a new PGA Tour record, eclipsing Tiger Woods’ all-time 2000 season.
“I grew this year, but for the most part I’ve been sort of preparing myself my entire life for those moments,” Schauffele says.
Stefan could see what was coming before Schauffele. A year ago, celebrating Christmas in San Diego, the father/coach sat down with the son/protege for a one-on-one conversation. End-of-year transitions always feel pivotal to Stefan. Time to take accountability. To craft purpose.
He looked at Schauffele, days before the pair would travel to Hawaii for the 2024 opening tournament, and came forward with a proclamation: “The team is ready for you to win a major.”
Then he stepped away, becoming just dad.
For this next stage of life, Stefan decided to move as far away as possible from his younger son, which is why he finds himself pausing mid-sentence at the sight of a pod of whales breaching in the Pacific Ocean.
Standing on a plot of farmland in Kauai, Hawaii, Stefan is working on building a family compound. The “Ogre,” as he’s known on the PGA Tour, always sporting a fedora, black shades and a linen polo, timed his expedition intentionally.
For a year and a half, Stefan lived in a 20-foot shipping container with no electricity, hot water or bathroom, away from his wife and Xander’s mother, Ping-Yi, for months at a time. He recently moved onto a second piece of property that includes a real house, so she can visit more often, and a warehouse, so tradesmen can come in and out from Hawaii’s mainland to assist the project.
Stefan is preparing the land to grow tuberous roots, like taro, araimo and satoimo. He’ll plant avocado trees for an oil supply. Everything will be ready for the Schauffeles in two to three years, perfect timing for their grandchildren to play with the animals. Yes, there will be livestock — Shetland ponies and miniature highland cows. Xander and his older brother, Nico, aren’t allowed to see it until it’s done.
There’s a vision. There’s a process. It began with the decision to step away from being Xander’s coach, a departure he wished had happened sooner. He knew the time would come when he could no longer serve his son’s needs in his expertise. The question of how to make the transition was harder.
Which is why as Xander lifted his first major championship trophy, Stefan was closer to Tokyo than Louisville, Ky., resigned to watch the moment on television from one of Hawaii’s farthest outlying islands.
“I cannot explain to you how close (Xander and I) are,” he says. “It is stupid. I had to literally do what I’m doing right now in order to create separation.”
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