Xander's new baby (red, white and) blues
Schauffele will take 6-week form/paternity layoff to Bethpage; Foggy Walker Cup rules
New dad Xander Schauffele will head to Bethpage a little rusty (Maddie Meyer/PGA of America via Getty Images)
NAPA, Calif. — Xander Schauffele is not in Napa, California, this week for the Procore Championship and it turns out he has a very good reason: he recently became a dad for the first time.
Schauffele — the only U.S. Ryder Cup player who is eligible to compete in the FedEx Fall event who is not in attendance — told the Associated Press on Tuesday that his wife, Maya, had a boy recently they named Victor.
Previously, Schauffele had not announced the birth or said anything about his wife’s pregnancy.
All of which is perfectly understandable. But the absence deprives Schauffele of a chance to sharpen his game in advance of the Ryder Cup, something he had wished to do and that his teammates hope to use to their advantage over the next few days.
There was hope that Schauffele could play, mostly because he will join Keegan Bradley’s team facing as many questions as any player on the squad — not because he is missing out on this opportunity but due to his relatively uneven form over the course of this season.
While 11 members of the European team will be competing at the DP World Tour’s flagship event, the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth (Sepp Straka is skipping due to the recent birth of his child), 10 U.S. players will be at Silverado Resort in Napa.
Bryson DeChambeau is ineligible to compete due to his LIV Golf status, but he was expected to be at a team dinner on Tuesday night after already being on the Monterey Peninsula last weekend rooting on the U.S. Walker Cup team at Cypress Point. Bradley said, “Bryson’s been great about all of this. He came to us.”
Bradley apparently hatched the plan to have the team convene at the Procore months ago. The PGA of America rented a massive home nearby that is serving as the “team room” for the week and where the assistant captains are staying.
Players played together in a practice round on Tuesday and all of the Ryder Cup players are grouped together for the first two rounds in four consecutive pairings.
“I think when you look at the last Ryder Cup, I think that was maybe a bit too much time off for us,” Scheffler said last month at the BMW Championship of the time off between events two years ago. “I think now with the way the schedule is, I think there’s like four weeks after the Tour Championship before the Ryder Cup, and that’s plenty of time to get rest while still staying competitive. It’s important for me to get out and get some competitive reps before the Ryder Cup. I felt like last time was maybe a bit too much time off.”
That was a talking point in the aftermath of the 16½-11½ defeat two years ago in Europe. The break between the competitions was cited among the reasons for a poor performance, especially since the Europeans used a similar plan and played at Wentworth two weeks prior to the Ryder Cup.
At the beginning of this year, Schauffele’s status for the Ryder Cup was not on the list of worries for the U.S. captain. Coming off of two major championship wins in 2024 and with a known foursomes partner in Patrick Cantlay, the 31-year-old Schauffele was easy to pencil in for as many as all four team sessions at Bethpage Black.
But a rib cage injury that lingered from the end of 2024 and led to more than six weeks away earlier this year left him scrambling to catch up all season. Although he never missed a cut, Schauffele never really contended, either. And for the first time in his career, he failed to qualify for the season-ending Tour Championship — making him the U.S. player facing the longest layoff ahead of the Ryder Cup.
Schauffele had just three top-10s in 16 events, although two came at the Masters and the British Open. There is obviously still plenty of game there, and his experience at three Presidents Cups and two Ryder Cups was never going to be cast aside.
“Xander is one of the most humble, mentally tough golfers that I’ve ever come across,” Bradley said. “He’s universally loved across the world of golf but especially in our team room. He’s the third ranked player in the world, and he’s our glue guy. He does everything we ask him to do. He’s a leader. But more importantly he’s just a really great guy.”
Schauffele is 4-4 in his two Ryder Cup appearances but went only 1-3 in Rome, where he found himself amid a good bit of chatter over the “pay-for-play” issue, mostly due to numerous comments by his father, Stefan, about it in various media outlets throughout the week.
The normally reliable partnership with Cantlay also didn’t work out in Rome. They went 0-2 in foursomes and Schauffele also lost a four-ball match with Collin Morikawa before winning his singles match against Nicolai Højgaard.
At this first Ryder Cup in 2021 at Whistling Straits, Schauffele went 3-1 — winning all of his team matches (two foursomes with Cantlay) before losing to Rory McIlroy in singles during the U.S. win. Schauffele went 4-1 last year at the Presidents Cup and split (1-1) with Cantlay in foursomes.
What does it all mean?
Some of the brainstorming will take place this week in Northern California.
For Schauffele, he’s got a newborn son to occupy his thoughts, perhaps a comforting feeling as he attempts to get his game in shape away from the spotlight.
GB&I’s Gavin Tiernan hits blindly into the fog on 16 at Cypress. (Brian Spurlock/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Foggy finish warrants a rules mulligan
By Alex Miceli
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — It was the 50th Walker Cup, and by every indication, playing at Cypress Point Club would make it memorable. However, the Sunday singles were marred by fog, highlighting the need for some adjustments to the rules of golf.
For most of the 10 singles matches on Sunday afternoon, the weather was idyllic. As can happen on the Monterey Peninsula, the fog started to roll in during the matches, and within 30 minutes, some of the holes became unplayable.
As the fog began to cause havoc, Team USA won the match, earning 13.5 points to secure the cup.
With the rules stating that all matches must be played to conclusion, some of the matches were stuck in the fog.
Eventually, with the overall score sitting 16 to 8, the final two groups still playing stood on the 16th tee.
The ninth match saw GB&I’s Gavin Tiernan with a 1-up lead over American Michael La Sasso. But once they arrived at the iconic par-3 16th, the fog caused the match to stall. Neither player wanted to hit a tee shot into the collection of marshmallows in the sky and agreed to wait.
Under the rules, as long as both players agreed to wait, they could wait. However, if one player wanted to play, then the other, reluctant or not, is forced to play as well.
A USGA official admitted on the Walker Cup broadcast that the weather was so bad that they would have called play off if it were a stroke-play event.
So now with the 10th and final match joining the other game on the 16th tee, Tiernan decided to hit his tee shot and found the penalty area left of the green. Standing far below the green surface in rocks, shells and ocean detritus, the sophomore from East Tennessee State University found the green with a wedge and two putts later would halve the hole. On the 17th, he won the match 2 and 1.
Neither Tiernan nor La Sasso should have been forced to decide to tee off on the 16th hole.
The rules in this case should be modified to align with the play and stroke play rules in this situation.
Fortunately the Walker Cup’s outcome was determined before the fog rolled in. Unfortunately the players who were still playing were at a disadvantage. Since the preeminent amateur event only happens every two years, the players deserve better consideration.