Salvaging a so-so season
Schauffele among several Yanks hoping to rewrite 2025 narrative at Bethpage
New daddy Xander Schauffele hopes to emerge from rough season as a ‘Victor’ (Scott Taetsch/PGA of America)
For the United States to win the Ryder Cup, it makes sense to expect a strong performance from its stars, notably Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau.
Those players combined to win four major championships over the last two years and would seemingly be important aspects to a home victory at Bethpage Black.
But Team USA could also use good play from a few other players with major titles to their names who didn’t exactly have stellar years, namely Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas and Xander Schauffele. They are veterans of U.S. teams and have plenty of accolades to support them, but each comes to Bethpage Black with questions about their form heading into the biennial competition.
Perhaps the biggest questions surround Schauffele, whose wife, Maya, recently had a baby boy (Victor) and who is coming off the worst season of his professional career.
Schauffele last competed at the BMW Championship nearly six weeks ago. He didn’t attend the team bonding and practice session two weeks ago at the Procore Championship. And yet, he’s fourth in the Official World Golf Ranking and a player that captain Keegan Bradley will undoubtedly be counting on to deliver points.
That baby, born Aug. 29, understandably created other priorities.
“Golf-wise, obviously didn’t do a whole lot of golf for a bit, having him and trying to be a good teammate to my wife, because that’s kind of all us guys can do early on,” Schauffele said. “I feel like after these two days, surprisingly playing kind of nice. I know, I surprised myself when I came out.
“It was funny to get some texts from captain (Bradley) and a lot of assistant caps like ‘Hey, how you doing?’ Because I wasn’t able to make Napa (for the Procore). But it was good to prepare at home on what was limited sleep but sort of a much clearer head than in season.”
The winner of two major championships in 2024, Schauffele was certainly not viewed as anyone to worry about coming into this year. But a disappointing season included a rib injury that sidelined him for nearly two months early and led to an extended struggle to regain his form from 2024
Couple that with the fact that his long-time foursomes partner, Cantlay, has also had issues of his own this year (he missed the cut at the last three majors) and it puts in doubt what would otherwise be considered a rock-solid team.
Schauffele never really contended in any event throughout the year and failed to qualify for the Tour Championship. Then came a brief paternity leave.
“It’s been awesome,” Schauffele said of the birth of his son. “I just had a kid. He was born on the 29th of August, little man. His name is Victor. That’s my middle name. No, I didn’t name him after Viktor Hovland. I was Victor way before Viktor was born.
“I feel very lucky to have my wife. She’s at home with him right now. I miss him a bunch. I had to sort of rip the Band-Aid when I was leaving the house, just kiss him on the forehead and walk out before I started staring at him. It’s been cool to sort of learn what it’s like to be a dad, and I look forward to everything that comes with that.”
Schauffele had just three top-10s — two of them were at the Masters and the British Open — and saw his Official World Golf Ranking drop from No. 2 at the start of the year to No. 4.
He still easily made the Ryder Cup team on points. But with the birth of a child there was a lengthy period without golf — the longest of anyone on either Ryder Cup team.
After the season-opening Sentry, Schauffele did not return until the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March and struggled to get back to the golfer that won the PGA Championship and the Open Championship in 2024.
His strong partnership with Cantlay in foursomes (more notably in the Presidents Cup) has seen him play that format nine times throughout five team competitions as they’ve posted a 6-3 record. It is difficult to envision Bradley breaking up that duo in a format that can be challenging.
And a solid week by Schauffele might go a long way toward turning around a frustrating year on the course.
“There’s definitely nice ways to end seasons, so yeah, if we’re able to — 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,” Schauffele said. “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.”
Euro hype: ‘Our time. Our place’
By Alex Miceli
Team Europe understands its mission and how to communicate it.
“I’ve said this for the last probably six or seven years to anyone that will listen: I think one of the biggest accomplishments in golf right now is winning an away Ryder Cup,” Rory McIlroy said on a victorious Sunday at home in Rome. “And that’s what we’re going to do at Bethpage.”
“Our time, our place” is not just an expression or a catchphrase to Europeans this week on Long Island. It’s a cause — a foundation that they have used to build upon what they did previously at Muirfield Village, Oak Hill, Oakland Hills and Medinah.
Win in America.
“Only 37 players have ever experienced the euphoria of an away win,” says Tony Jacklin — the captain of Europe’s first victorious teams — to lead off a hype video that hits all the right notes to motivate Luke Donald’s team on Long Island.
From 1979 to 2023, Europe has won 12 Ryder Cups, with four of those victories coming on the road. The Americans haven’t accomplished that feat in more than three decades.
It’s a mission that has been drummed into the psyche of every player on the European side. Since he was named captain for the 45th Ryder Cup, Luke Donald has used the rallying cry of winning on foreign soil as a beacon for his team, picking up the mantle of prior road captains.
“We were made to feel like second-class citizens,” Jacklin said in the video shown to all the European players this week of the early lop-sided days before Continental Europe was invited to join the party in 1979.
That feeling grew and festered since the first Ryder Cup in 1927 at Worcester and, until 1983, was the law of the land every two years. Even though Europe lost that year at PGA National by a single point, it was the closest Europe had been to a win since the 1969 tie at Royal Birkdale, but it wasn’t a win.
Jacklin was the captain in ’83 and knew if he treated his team as winners they could and would win. In his four occasions as captain, Jacklin won twice, lost once and tied once.
Jacklin also knew he needed a leader. Seve Ballesteros was part of the European effort at West Palm Beach in his second appearance, and he infused the Euros with a determined can-do spirit that continues years after his death.
The tall Spaniard was an icon to many on the Continent and was the player who was looked upon to help lead the Europeans out of the abyss.
Tony Jacklin called him the key. By 1987 at Muirfield Village, with the Ryder Cup in hand having won at The Belfry in 1985, Ballesteros and his teammates delivered victory on U.S. soil for the first time.
That changed everything. “The shirt isn’t just fabric, it’s tradition, it’s honor, it’s defiance,” Jacklin says in the video the incorporates all 37 Europeans (including the late Seve) who’ve won an away Ryder Cup. “It embodies everything we stand for.”
Donald has the four shirts from 1987, 1995, 2004 and 2012 on display in the team room as a final reminder that this week on Long Island isn’t for the pizza. Only McIlroy, Justin Rose and the captain himself on this year’s European team are among those 37 players from 10 different countries who’ve gotten the job done overseas.
The driving force this week is to add 10 more names and three more countries to the roster of triumphant road warriors — Spain’s Ballesteros, José María Olazábal, José Rivero, Sergio García and Miguel Ángel Jiménez; Scotland’s Gordan Brand Jr., Ken Brown, Sandy Lyle, Sam Torrance, Colin Montgomerie and Paul Lawrie; England’s Nick Faldo, Howard Clark, David Gilford, Mark James, Lee Westwood, Paul Casey, Ian Poulter, David Howell, Rose and Donald; Wales’ Ian Woosnam; Ireland’s Eamonn Darcy, Philip Walton, Pádraig Harrington and Paul McGinley; Northern Ireland’s Darren Clarke, Graeme McDowell and McIlroy; Germany’s Bernhard Langer and Martin Kaymer; Italy’s Costantino Rocca and Francesco Molinari; Sweden’s Per-Ulrik Johansson and Peter Hanson; France’s Thomas Levet; and Belgium’s Nicolas Colsaerts.
“Just 37 players,” Jacklin said. “It’s time we added to that.”