Xander Schauffele, on paper not less than, is a little bit of an unknown.
He qualified for the Ryder Cup based on points, but last yr carried his total. A rib injury forced him to miss two months this yr.
Then, he didn’t qualify for the Tour Championship for the primary time. And entering the weekend at Bethpage, he hasn’t golfed in a tournament because the middle of August — taking day off as his wife, Maya, gave birth to their first child and never attending Team USA’s tuneup in Napa two weeks ago that everybody else aside from Bryson DeChambeau (LIV Golf ban) participated in.
But amid a difficult yr of golf, Schauffele, actually, has shocked himself with how well he has played while ramping back up — which would supply a lift to Team USA.
“I feel like after these two days, surprisingly playing form of nice,” Schauffele said Tuesday. “I do know, I surprised myself after I got here out.”
Keegan Bradley and his assistant captains checked in on Schauffele during his break as he supported his wife and their son, Victor. He took three weeks off after the BMW Championship and commenced stepping into a rhythm around two weeks before arriving at Bethpage for his third Ryder Cup.
“I miss him a bunch,” Schauffele said of Victor. “I needed to kind of rip the Band-Aid after I was leaving the home, just kiss him on the brow and walk out before I began gazing him.”
Schauffele tasted a Ryder Cup win as a rookie at Whistling Straits in 2021. And this time, given his struggles on the course, one other Team USA victory would help Schauffele “forget lots about what happened in 2025,” he said.
Harris English, Russell Henley, Collin Morikawa and Scottie Scheffler formed one Tuesday practice group for Team USA. DeChambeau, Ben Griffin, Justin Thomas and Cameron Young paired together in one other. Sam Burns, Patrick Cantlay, J.J. Spaun and Schauffele were the third group.
For Team Europe, Tommy Fleetwood, Shane Lowry, Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose were the primary group. Rasmus Hojgaard, Viktor Hovland, Robert MacIntyre and Sepp Straka were together. And Ludvig Aberg, Matt Fitzpatrick, Tyrrell Hatton and Jon Rahm formed the ultimate collection of golfers.
Luke Donald knows NBA legend Michael Jordan will likely don Team USA attire this weekend and sure won’t dish out any advice to him this time, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t influenced Donald — and by extension the Team Europe group he’s captaining again — previously.
When Donald neared the top of his collegiate profession at Northwestern within the early 2000s, he played golf with him in Chicago. They’ve remained friends since and reside near one another in Florida. And as Donald watched the “Last Dance” documentary in 2020, he observed that Jordan “was never going to do anything he didn’t ask his teammates to do” while also learning in regards to the importance of a team setting from Jordan.
“You’ll be able to be a team of champions but not a championship team,” Donald said. “You usually need the people around you. You’re at all times stronger being a collective. I feel that’s something that I definitely took from him and I’ve tried to implant on my teams the last two times, that we’re at all times stronger together. Those are strong values that we try to live as much as.”
Bradley (No. 13) will turn into the primary golfer to captain a Ryder Cup team while ranked contained in the top 20, based on Elias Sports Bureau.
