Back to back? Schauffele > Woods
Xander gets back in the winner's circle while Tiger's back requires another surgery
Xander Schauffele closes off a tough year with a victory in Japan (Kenta Harada/Getty Images)
One of the lone bright spots for the Americans two weeks ago at the Ryder Cup was Xander Schauffele.
The two-time major winner who was returning to competition for the first time following the birth of his son, Victor, in late August was also coming off a tough year that saw him rarely contend and miss the Tour Championship for the first time in his career.
Schauffele had a hard time getting back on track after an early-season rib injury that kept him out for six weeks and saw him struggle to regain his form throughout the year, posting just three top-10 finishes.
But at the Ryder Cup, Schauffele went 3-1 for Team USA. He defeated Jon Rahm in Sunday singles. After a disappointing week for the Americans overall, Schauffele at least left Bethpage Black with some much-needed confidence.
That was apparent over the weekend outside of Tokyo, where Schauffele won for the first time in 2025, capturing the Baycurrent Classic (formerly the Zozo Championship) by a stroke over Max Greyserman and three ahead of Michael Thorbjornsen — two promising young players seeking their first tour wins.
“I was plenty nervous,” said Schauffele, who shot a final-round 64 and completed the tournament at 19-under par. “It’s been over a year since I was even looking at winning a golf tournament. I was probably just as nervous or more nervous as they were just because I knew I’ve done it before and I had to dig kind of deep in my memory to do it again.”
Schauffele’s last victory came at the 2024 Open Championship at Royal Troon, where he added a second major title following a win earlier at the PGA Championship.
For a time, Schauffele moved to No. 2 in the world behind Scottie Scheffler and was clearly expected to build on that performance this year.
But that pesky rib injury, which first surfaced in December, got in the way. After playing the Sentry in January and a TGL event, Schauffele shut it down until March. He spent the rest of the year trying to catch up, while never quite getting comfortable with his game.
That’s what made Sunday’s result, the 10th victory of his PGA Tour career, so impressive.
“Definitely had doubts,” Schauffele said. “I think every player in any sport at some point in time you feel like you’re on top of the world and then you feel like, not that you’ve lost it, but you feel less confident. I have a really good team around me, they pick me up when I’m down.
“This is really special for me. Sooner than I thought, to be fair. I was running out of events in 2025 to sort of put my mark on it. I’m sure when I look back on 2025 at the end of my career, I’ll smile and think it was a great year.”
The season outlook wasn’t hurt by that performance at the Ryder Cup.
Schauffele split his foursomes matches with partner Patrick Cantlay but won a four-ball match with J.J. Spaun over Rahm and Sepp Strake. Then he delivered against Rahm again in the Sunday singles when it still mattered as the U.S. was making a furious comeback that ultimately fell short.
“I thought at the Ryder Cup I played pretty solid, I let Pat hang in our second alternate match or foursomes match, I played really poor there and let him down, but the other rounds I felt like I was starting to kind of play some good golf,” he said. “It’s very high stakes, high pressure golf and I started to hit some shots that I wasn’t really hitting throughout the year. I think the whole tournament, even though we lost, for me personally I was able to hit a few shots in high stakes moments that sort of gave me a little bit of confidence for sure.”
Schauffele had slipped to No. 4 in the Official World Golf Ranking and has now moved back up to third behind Scheffler and Rory McIlory.
And he’s got some nice tournament vibes to take into 2026.
The focus has remained on Tiger Woods’ back for more than a decade (Simon Bruty/Anychance/Getty Images)
The Tiger surgical saga adds new chapter
With a full year without golf and plenty of time to recover from Achilles surgery in the spring, there remained hope — if guarded — that Tiger Woods might make another comeback this fall.
The Hero World Challenge? The PNC Championship with son Charlie? A PGA Tour Champions event at the start of the new year after he turns 50?
All of it at least seemed plausible, if not probable.
Until Saturday.
That’s when the dreaded but familiar Tiger tweet dropped around 6 p.m. ET. Another back surgery, performed a day earlier in New York. The future murky once again.
Woods, who last played in an official tournament at the 2024 Open Championship at Royal Troon, announced that he had lumbar disk replacement surgery.
In simple terms, the procedure occurred a level above on the spine where he had 2017 spinal fusion surgery. Since that operation — which turned out to be the pathway to another major triumph and three more PGA Tour victories — Woods twice needed “band-aid” type procedures in the area addressed on Friday.
“After experiencing pain and lack of mobility in my back, I consulted with doctors and surgeons to have tests taken,” Woods said Saturday in a social media post. “The scans determined that I had a collapsed disk in the L4/5 (spine area), disk fragments and a compromised spinal canal. I opted to have my disk replaced yesterday, and I already know I made a good decision for my health and my back.”
The post said that the surgery was performed Dr. Sheeraz Qureshi at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. The same doctor performed both miscrodisectomy procedures Woods had on that area of the spine in 2020 and again in 2024.
The latter was more than a year ago and was believed to clear the way for some return to golf in 2025 after struggles in the five tournaments Woods played last year, missing the cut in three major championships.
But apparently other issues arose, perhaps due to trying to play golf again, although there had been no indication from Woods as to his rehab process.
It was the seventh back surgery for the 15-time major champion who has played just 21 worldwide events since he won the 82nd of his PGA Tour titles at the 2019 Zozo Championship.
After having three microdiscectomy procedures in 2014-15, Woods elected to have a serious surgery that was performed in April of 2017 that was possibly career ending. The spinal fusion performed by Dr. Richard Guyer in Texas meant a six-month rehabilitation without being able to swing a golf club.
His return was nothing less than amazing, as Woods won three times over two years, was the playing captain on a winning U.S. Presidents Cup team and rose to No. 6 in the Official World Golf Ranking.
But Woods has struggled since that time with various injuries, most seriously the February 2021 car crash that severely injured his lower right leg.