Xander Schauffele’s caddy claims one golfer is responsible for ending The Open winner’s 1.5 year-long drought
US golfer Xander Schauffele may not have had the fairytale ending he had hoped for at the 2024 Paris Olympics. He couldn't defend his Tokyo 2020 gold medal and finished 9th. However, like any athlete, this is not the first time he has seen a low.
In 2021, the 2024 Open Championship winner was seeing a 1.5-year drought. Recently his decade-long caddy, Austin Kiaser opened up to Sirius XM PGA Tour Radio about what changes Xander Schauffele adopted to get out of this rough patch.
Kaiser mainly attributed the changes in his golf swing to a turnaround. He further shared that the duo also looked at a couple of coaches and the main thing about Xander Schauffele is that he is not afraid of trying different things. So far in his career, his father Stefan had been Schauffele's only instructor.
Coach Chris Como has been credited for the change in Schauffele's gameplay and ending his winless 1.5 years. And Austin Kaiser gave him the due praise for that. He said:
"So, yeah with the swing change, Chris Como, his (Schauffele's) dad, how that evolved has obviously made a huge difference for us,"
According to Xander Schauffele's official website, the golfer will be seen next at the FedEx St. Jude Championship from the 15th to the 18th of August in Memphis, Tennessee.
"Because you can get worse," - Chris Como on working with Xander Schauffele on his golf swing
Earlier this week Xander Schauffele's coach Chris Como sat down with PGA Tour.com to discuss the golfer's phenomenal 2024 season with the Open Championship win and of course the changes in Schauffele's golf swing that ended his 1.5 year drought.
He has been a golf swing coach to golfing greats such as Tiger Woods, Bryson DeChambeau, and Jason Day. Como shared how he began his work by studying Xander Schauffele's golf swings from as far back as possible and talked with his dad who also coached him. He wanted to collect as much data as possible before initiating anything.
He said: "I try to get a lot of information. I try to really understand the history of their game, their swing. Early on with him, I asked him to get me as many swings of yourself from as far back as you can. I've had conversations with his dad. Just try to take it all in, right? Because he was already clearly very good,"
Chris Como however pointed out the complexity in changing someone's golf swing and how if not done properly may also have negative effects.
"And it's like, yes, you want to get better, but how do you get better in a way that hopefully you don't get worse? Because you can get worse. That's a very real thing when you try to do any sort of swing change or whatever it is,"
He further added how some part of the "game plan" emerged.
"And from all that, at least the front end of the game plan emerges. And then it becomes, how do you start with something that hopefully kills as many birds with one stone or makes as much of an impact in the way that you want to, with us doing as little as possible? And then you're constantly updating. You're constantly getting more more information as you go along. So he's talking about how we've had a fairly slow drip approach,"
He attributes the success of their process to not doing everything at the same time. And while he and Xander Schauffele have made some significant changes to his golf swing, they have done while taking in information and then deciding if they "need to call an audible".
"(We’ve made) some pretty significant changes but we haven't tried to just do it all at one time and along the way we've tried to really kind of take in information to see if we need to call an audible,"
Chris Como further talked about all the changes they made to Xander Schauffele's golf swing.
"(The club is) a little bit more across the line at the top. The way he works his shoulders and his pelvis is a little bit different going back. And then from there, the club transition is slightly different, which allows him to work his body a little bit different to the shot,"
He added:
"I think in general it's allowing him to hit a fade where he doesn't feel like a pull hook is as much in play. He likes to work the ball a lot. He wants to have everything feel that he can draw it and then fade it and then do both without hitting a left shot,"
Certainly, the work put in by the golfer-coach duo made wonders as it put a stop to Xander Schauffele's winless years.