Xander Schauffele’s trainer gives away how he’s added so much distance to his driving recently

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For a long time from the outside, it did appear that there was nothing technical preventing Xander Schauffele from becoming a winner of multiple major championships, with the 31-year-old putting himself in contention time and time again.

Xander Schauffele already had 12 top 10s in majors heading into the PGA Championship at Valhalla. Meanwhile, he had missed just three cuts in 26 major appearances before 2024. And yet, Schauffele’s game appeared to still go to another level this year.

Schauffele, of course, won the PGA Championship and followed that with The Open Championship shortly after.

Obviously, it was a big achievement to clear that mental hurdle of winning one of the sport’s biggest prizes. Schauffele had been questioned in the days leading up to Valhalla after not winning the Wells Fargo Championship.

How Xander Schauffele has become one of the longest drivers on the PGA Tour

But the world number two also made a significant change physically. Schauffele added a remarkable amount of clubhead speed in a short space of time to become one of the best drivers on the PGA Tour.

It is no surprise therefore, that Harry Higgs is amongst the players to have taken inspiration from Schauffele. Speaking to the No Laying Up Podcast, Higgs shared what he had been told about how Schauffele had become so much more impressive off the tee.

“Xander was a lot of the inspiration. My trainer Edward Bolt, he’s out on tour and works with a few guys, physical therapist and trainer. But he reached out to the guys that Xander works with and just asked where has this jump come from? And it was some swing-wise technical, his work with [Chris] Como who had the experience with Bryson too, but he said it’s just straight up we started lifting heavier and boom, there it goes,” he said.

“Xander was a lot of the inspiration. He hits it really, really hard – and really straight, and does everything else well too.”

The statistics which show Schauffele’s improvement in recent years

Schauffele has had plenty of distance in the past. He was actually ranked inside the top 10 on the PGA Tour for strokes gained off the tee back in 2020. However, the next three years were much more underwhelming on that front.

But he is back amongst the very best on the tour in 2024. And given that he has now matched that with the knowledge that he can win the biggest events, he is going to be so dangerous heading into 2025 and beyond.

Schauffele has at least one top three finish at all of the majors already in his career. Now that he has cleared that hurdle of winning one – and quickly followed that with number two – there really does appear to be no reason why he cannot win many more.