Thirty years ago, Stefan Schauffele touched down in Hawaii to start as an assistant golf professional on the North Shore. He’d already been to Kauai once before, and he immediately proclaimed it the coolest place on Earth. In need of physical and emotional healing, the tropical land proved to be therapeutic, the spectacular beaches, dramatic mountainside and lush vegetation sparking a two-year period of growth and recovery surrounded by his young family.
“I swore to myself I’ll come back to Hawaii,” Stefan said recently, “and I’ll eventually live out the end of my days here.”
Much would have to go right in the interim, of course.
At the time, Stefan was still coming to grips with his own sporting mortality. When he was 20, while training to become a German decathlete, Stefan was stuck head-on by a drunk driver. The shattered windshield from the crash pierced his left eye, leading to six surgeries in two years and marking the end of his Olympic dreams. Without a purpose, alcoholism and other excesses took hold before he and wife Ping-Yi moved to the U.S. to forge a new life.
“I thought about what I could do to heal my own wounds – I never found out how good I would’ve been,” Stefan said. “And my promise then was that I will do anything and everything to make sure that Xander will find out how good he is at his sport.”
Stefan was uniquely prepared for the role. As a member of the first club team in Germany, one of his responsibilities was to scout young, up-and-coming talent for the program. He was trained to know what to look for – transcendent physical skills, the proper mental makeup, an indefatigable work ethic – and, perhaps just as importantly, how to nurture it.
More interested in soccer as a kid, Xander didn’t pick up a club until age 9 but dove headlong into the sport after a soccer coach once promised more offensive scoring chances and didn’t deliver. Xander quit on the spot, wanting to exert more control over his own individual success.
So when Xander showed immense promise in his early teens, Stefan concocted an unusual plan, designed to make his boy a well-adjusted adult by age 16. It involved two rules: Xander was the boss on green grass, no questions asked. But his father was in charge off of it – and he better respect it.
That, naturally, came with a few tension points. The pubescent teenager abused his newfound freedom, tested his limits, butted heads with his dad, oftentimes arguing just for the sake of it. One particularly heated exchange led to a destroyed bathroom, a couple of alphas squaring off. It wasn’t until Xander began to appreciate just how difficult the system must be for his father to run that he started to buy in, fully.
“I’m hopeful to have a family myself, and I don’t know if I’m going to go that route exactly the way he did it, to be honest,” Xander said. “It’s very hands-on and it’s very in-your-face and it can backfire. But it’s what he believed was the right way. And it’s definitely the reason I am the way I am now.”
The unique setup paid off. Xander earned a scholarship to Long Beach State, then transferred to San Diego State – separated not just physically but emotionally from his father for the first time. Stefan made a concerted effort to give him space.
“Our relationship could mature,” Stefan said, “because (prior to that) we were together 24/7. It fulfilled what we had hoped it would accomplish.”
In those early years as a pro, Stefan was ubiquitous once again – on the road, at dinners, on the range. Typically dressed in a linen shirt, capris and straw hat, hidden behind dark sunglasses, he cut an unmistakable figure on Tour. But in conversations with other player parents, he was quick to remind that he was there to work, not root on his son, and he made a clear delineation between unemotional observing and partisan spectating.
“I can’t be dad out there,” he said. “That’s just not me.”
Out of financial necessity, his was an all-encompassing job. He served as Xander’s swing coach, trying to sharpen a game that would be built on strong long-iron play, which Stefan believed was the greatest determiner of sustained success. Stefan was also, at times, Xander’s strategist and sports psychologist, observing his mannerisms, talking through course-management decisions and wading into the mental warfare of a five-hour round. Off the course, Stefan coordinated the team’s travel, booking cheap extended stays and expensing them to his fledgling golf business, and reached out to potential sponsors for other opportunities.
The scrappy start still spawned one of the most rapid ascensions in recent memory: Finishing less than $1,000 shy of a PGA Tour card in 2016, Xander earned his status through the developmental tour playoffs a few weeks later, posted a top-5 finish in the 2017 U.S. Open as the 352nd-ranked player in the world, and won twice on Tour within a two-month span. By the end of the following year, he was a top-10 player.
“You’re never sure how long it’ll go,” Stefan said, “but there was steadfast belief in the whole team that he will be a success.”
That was grounded in another of Stefan’s core beliefs. As his son climbed the ranks, Stefan employed a strategy that originated from his first love. He equated golf to the decathlon, and over time, he urged Xander to experience incremental improvement in each discipline of the game. (Last year, Xander was the only player who ranked inside the top 50 in every major statistical category.)
“We believe in a very, very long-term view,” Stefan said. “I wanted his development to be a gradual incline. I don’t want any huge amplitudes, any big valleys. But if we cut out the valleys, we potentially also cut off the peaks. So maybe it’ll take him longer, and there’s not as much fanfare for him to get to the top of the world. But once he’s up on top, he’s going to be extremely difficult to be displaced.”
Even if Stefan wouldn’t be alongside him.
HILTON HEAD ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA – JUNE 17: Xander Schauffele of the United States plays a shot as his father and coach Stefan Schauffele looks on during a practice round prior to the RBC Heritage on June 17, 2020 at Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
EVER SINCE HIS SON splashed on Tour, Stefan believed he was “inadequate” as his instructor. Sure, he could coach kids. Maybe a new pro. But a PGA Tour superstar, trying to reach the pinnacle of the sport? No, that was never the plan. His job was to emphasize the same points in practice and “shoot down people that were talking nonsense” – such as a putting guru in 2016 who had cluttered Xander’s mind with too many unnecessary thoughts on the greens.
But a turning point came in late 2023. Xander was a nine-time Tour winner, an Olympic gold medalist and a top-5 regular, earning him the unofficial title of the “best player yet to win a major,” the sport’s most backhanded compliment – praised for his otherworldly talent but with the unmistakable implication that he lacked something.
It wasn’t entirely unjustified. Stefan sensed it, too, even as he implored his son to stay positive, to keep pushing, that a steady drip caves the stone.
“We really ran this ship together for years,” Stefan said. “He knows so much about the golf swing. He’d been deep-diving rabbit holes on all sorts of methodology and teachings. I’m sure he could have won a major while I was still at the helm, but there was something missing. There were a couple of things that I couldn’t explain to myself. That I couldn’t tell him. We both were banging our heads on the walls.”
Stefan had been quietly looking for someone else for years. Now, finally, he conceded it was time for a change. He recommended Chris Como.
“It was a scary thing,” Xander said. “I’d been with my dad my whole life. My dad and I always talked about this journey we’re on together and how long our relationship will last. He’s always going to be my dad. He’s always going to be someone I love. He’s helped me more than anyone can actually understand. But it was time for him to take that hat off. We just felt like we needed fresh eyes.”
Within a few sessions, in a collaborative effort with Stefan, Como made subtle tweaks to the top of Xander’s backswing and how he was delivering the club, producing a quality of strike Xander hadn’t seen in years, if ever.
“I was relieved,” Stefan said, “because he immediately knew the answers.”
And so Stefan stepped not just into the background but out of the frame entirely. The original father-son duo had grown into a full-fledged team, all of the pieces now in place: Xander had a caddie he’d known since college; a new swing coach and his longtime putting coach; a new trainer, David Sundberg, who was extracting every ounce of speed and power out of Xander’s 5-foot-9-inch frame; a new chef on the road, his older brother, Nico; and he’d brought his representation in-house and installed his uncle (Stefan’s brother-in-law) as his agent.
“I told him, ‘We’re ready for you now,’” Stefan said.
With his support staff optimized and his swing more powerful and efficient, Xander was trending by the time he arrived for the 2024 PGA Championship. To get across the line, finally, all he did at Valhalla was lead wire to wire, fire a Sunday 65 to card the lowest 72-hole score in major championship history, and swirl in a 6-footer on the 72nd hole to defeat Bryson DeChambeau.
After celebrating with his wife and others near the clubhouse, Xander stood atop the hill behind the 18th green. With a few spare minutes until the trophy presentation, he knew who to call.
His dad picked up the phone, stepping away from a watch party half a world away.
“I couldn’t even talk – it was that overwhelming,” Stefan said. “I’m like, Process-process-process, observer-observer-observer. But the moment he wins, and the observation is over, I’m dead. Then it overcomes me.”
WHEN HIS YOUNGEST SON became successful, Stefan knew his long-ago vision could become a reality. And so in 2022, three decades after his dad served in the Princeville pro shop, Xander bought a 22-acre plot of land that could eventually serve as a family compound for all the Schauffeles, young and old. A place to unwind and recharge and connect. A place to get their hands dirty. Overseeing the project, Stefan set up a 20-foot shipping container on the side of the rural hillside in Kauai and lived there for about a year and a half without a toilet, hot water or electricity.
“Xander was my long-term purpose. I had given him everything I had. And now I knew that I needed to find a new long-term purpose,” Stefan said. “Xander knows me. He knows how I am; I’m doing things that others find inexplicable or idiotic. I don’t care what they think. I knew I had to leave. I had to leave to hand this over fully to make that team fly.”
The move, from the outside, would seem to be tinged with sadness. The father who was omnipresent didn’t witness his son achieve the dream they’d set out, together, to accomplish 20 years earlier; without access to a TV, Stefan wasn’t even watching the front nine of the PGA before a friend phoned and invited him to a condo 15 minutes away. But both father and son viewed the shift more pragmatically.
“When I step out of the plane here, I take one breath and I’m zooming out,” Stefan said. With his eye condition, “I literally feel a hundred times better than anywhere else. The sense of wellbeing is instantaneous here. I made a choice. And when I make a choice, I keep at it, steady drip caves a stone.”
“It feels good, it feels healthy,” Xander said. “I just want him to be happy. He wants to kick back and enjoy the latter half of his life.”
Because of the lifestyle change, Stefan’s on-site presence has been drastically reduced. One of the only tournaments he attended in person last year was The Open; as a European, it’s always been the event most important to him. And he wasn’t going to miss it, not with his son announced on the first tee – for Stefan to hear for the first time – as a major champion.
Xander put on quite a show for his old man at Royal Troon. Freed up without the major burden, he hunted down the leaders on the final day with a Sunday 65 that will go down as one of the best in championship history. Unlike the PGA, which went down to the wire, Xander soaked up the moment on the last hole and eyed his father behind the green. This one, they could celebrate together, and that night they did, in typically understated fashion, puffing good cigars and drinking fine wine out of the claret jug.
“I’d always promised my wife that I know I have the tools to get him on Tour,” Stefan said. “And although now I no longer have much to do with it, I feel like the foundation is still created by him and I together.”
STEFAN WANTS TO BE clear about one thing: This did not happen by chance. All of it was planned out, written down somewhere. Hawaii. Early Adulting. PGA Tour. Majors. And down the road: the career Grand Slam. That it’s come to fruition isn’t surprising as much as it is satisfying.
“It’s a method, a mathematical equation, a probability calculation,” Stefan said. “If he masters enough, then he will fulfill his promise. And then that will help me fulfill my promise. The promise that I made to him, that I will do anything and everything for him to be able to find out how good he is, that promise is fulfilled. And I’m very proud of that.”
Reflection doesn’t come easily, not when he’s only 60 and so full of life, not when there’s still much work to be done. But every so often, when the sunset hits just right, the man who out on Tour was nicknamed “The Ogre” will break down and weep.
“It’s very emotional for me to be on this land,” he said. “I’m creating a space for the family to get together in the old-school, European style. That’s my goal now. My purpose.”
It’ll take years to complete, and that’s OK – Stefan, after all, is used to long-term projects. He told Xander not to visit until it’s finished, but earlier this year, his boy couldn’t help it. Already on Maui for the season-opening event, Xander popped over to Kauai for about 14 hours to see the property. To see the vision. To see what, now, after all these years, has brought his father fulfillment.
When it was time to head home, 5,000 miles away from this patriarchal paradise, Xander turned to his father at the airport dropoff and gave him a mischievous grin: “Well, I now understand you.”
“You live and you die and you just want to enjoy – that’s kind of how I look at it in my life,” Xander said. “Enjoy what you can with certain people, because not a lot of the other stuff matters. So if he’s happy and I’m happy, then my whole family is happy.
“That’s all you can hope for as a son to a father.”
