Xander Schauffele On Golf AI And The Anatomy Of An Albatross

Stefan Schauffele, one of the most fascinating characters on tour, is no cookie cutter golf coach. The erudite training philosophies espoused by the eccentric stogie puffing swing-savant, known to forage fairway adjacent foliage for a vitamin C fix, fall more in line with Nariyoshi Miyagi than Hank Haney.

When Xander was growing up Stefan forbade his son from watching video of his own swing. This forced the future seven-time PGA Tour winner and Olympic gold medalist to pinpoint flaws and make adjustments by feel alone without the crutch of a visual aid—a nifty skillset to possess in the chaos of tournament play.

Another perception altering technique he employed was getting Xander to hit shots while blindfolded.

“It’s essentially a test of balance. If you can’t see your other senses will take over. We did this with him from a very young age because it was a belief I had. I don’t remember if I read it anywhere but it just made perfect sense to me. I couldn’t tell you how many hours we hit blind balls but we did it extensively,” the elder Schauffele explains.

Looking back the sight deprivation exercise allowed the golfer to really trust his full swing and learn how to pure the ball while also helping him develop thick skin.

“A lot of the time I was barefoot. People looked at us in really weird ways when we did it, to be honest,” Xander quips though he believes the unorthodox training was beneficial.

“There’s definitely a different sensation hitting balls with your eyes closed. I’m sure when I was ten, I’d cheat on a couple and peak with one eye but for the most part my dad wanted me to learn where everything is spatially and really trust where the ground is and make good contact with the ball first,” he adds.

Schauffele’s software partner Hyland, a leading enterprise content services provider, released a video yesterday featuring Xander donning an eye mask while going on to birdie a par 3 on a private course in Vegas. Dubbed the “Hyland X Vision Challenge,” the spot is intended to highlight the parallels between the power of teamwork and trust in golf and business.

Ed McQuiston, Hyland’s chief commercial officer, notes that Xander always references how the team behind him provides guidance and invaluable assistance which is the how the company views their relationship with their clients.

“Our customers are deluged with information on ways to solve their business challenges. I think it’s part of our job to help make sense of this for them, tell them where to shoot their shot if you will, and the vision challenge emulates the way we view our role,” McQuiston explains.

Sifting through data points to retrieve actionable intel to make an informed decision is par for the course in pro golf where terrain characteristics, weather and even a player’s current standing on the leaderboard can make an impact on every swing decision.

When asked if the rules were changed to allow golf-versed AI to help his caddie Austin Kaiser and him make better in-round choices Xander opined that data on wind direction, integral to determine what the safest misses are, would be a course management game changer in tournament play. Even though his caddie is very adept in that department, it would remove the possibility of human error when gauging gusts.

Earlier this month in the final round of The American Express at PGA West in the Coachella Valley, Xander holed out on a par 5 from 226 yards, carding a rare double eagle. The flush hit albatross soared over a pond before landing on the fringe of the green, taking a few hops and spinning toward the hole. The odds of holing one are 6 million to 1 and it was the first one ever recorded on the Stadium Course. Had it been just one foot shorter it would’ve slammed into the back of the green complex and caromed into the drink.

Prior to the shot there had been a healthy back-and-forth discussion with Austin before deciding to go with a 4-iron. A hybrid would have taken the water out of the picture and a 5-iron would have potentially put them in a safer spot, but from the result it’s clear the risk/reward analysis was well judged. While the final flight path, di­­dn’t exactly match the intended course—the plan was to land it near the flagstick and have it turnover towards the center—you can’t argue with a dunk.

“The miss on that hole was left, not right with the water. I had this sort of launchpad I was hitting off of, aimed out there, and the wind was right to left and varied. Back to this AI notion, a robot would have been like ‘it’s variable right now’ which is the worst thing a golfer can hear prior to hitting,” Xander says

“Holing out is one thing but I felt like I made a very committed swing which is all we can do at the end of the day. The most human error there can be in this process is the guy hitting the club. I made a really good swing, it wasn’t exactly what we wanted but there was enough good information along the way that we were able to pull it off,” he adds.

It’s often said that at the PGA Tour level, closing the deal on a Sunday comes down to a battle of wills more-so than one of skills with mental acuity being the bigger differentiator among the players at the top of the leaderboard. Schauffele agrees that the stone-cold mindset plays a role to an extent when it comes to executing when in contention but it can also be a convenient fiction as it often can just boil down to the strength of the team behind that player.

“You’re never doing it by yourself, there is a team around you. If you look at the best players, the ‘stone cold killers,’ they have a lot of support: whether it’s a mental coach, a really good swing coach, a real good physio, a better caddie or really supportive wife. The list goes on-even a guy doing blood work to make sure your healthy. There are so many big roles that take place almost in the darkness in order for us to be that person on T.V. that doesn’t look like they’re phased too much.”

His attitude on what will be the end result of the ongoing fissure between LIV and the PGA Tour, that continues to consume most of the oxygen around the sport is refreshingly positive. Schauffele contends that when we look back at this period in golf history we may view this time more as the beginning of a new growth spurt than an existential crisis.

“Golf has been all over ESPN during this fractious time and there has been a lot of money poured into golf. Was it in ideal fashion, probably not. In ten years was this a good thing for this sport? Maybe. It’s pretty early on and there are a lot of moving pieces and headbutting but I like to look at the glass half full versus half empty. You have to break yourself down in order to grow and maybe our sport will grow because of it,” he says.