Xander Schauffele proved his metal in golf’s biggest events in 2024.
He outran Bryson DeChambeau and Viktor Hovland at Valhalla to win the PGA Championship and finally break through to win his first major title.
On many occasions, fans questioned if Schauffele would ever get over the major championship finish line in front, despite winning an Olympic Gold Medal and several PGA Tour events. He put the debate beyond doubt at The Open at Royal Troon.
Schauffele fought through the grim conditions in Scotland to romp to the Claret Jug and by his side for both of these moments plus many more was his caddie Austin Kaiser.
“Austin, he’s one of my best friends, but it’s a team thing. I’m the one hitting the shots, but at the end of the day, it’s a team thing. It’s a team environment that I like to have for my team,” Schauffele said, explaining why he wanted to walk up the 18th hole at Troon with his caddie, as opposed to walking on his own.
“I was marching, and I was sitting there, and I was just trying to focus, and I sort of looked up, and I saw yellow leaderboards. In my head, I was like, you’re about to have your moment here. No one better to share it than Austin because he deserves it as well.”
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Who is Xander Schauffele’s caddie? Meet Austin Kaiser
Kaiser has been there virtually with Schauffele since day one when he turned professional in 2015. The pair know each other from their time at college at San Diego State.
Kaiser once told the Caddie Network that his best memory from playing golf is every college tournament he played in and his greatest memory as a caddie was seeing Schauffele secure his PGA Tour card.
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Kaiser also spoke to the Caddie Network after Schauffele won gold at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, describing the joy of writing themselves into the history books.
“I’m definitely going to remember the Sunday. Being in the lead you definitely think about how you will handle future times when you have the lead and how you will respond and what not,” he said.
“That final feeling of him making that putt was such a euphoric feeling that’s something that’s going to be ingrained in me, so that’s one thing I’ll remember. I love Tokyo, I love the culture and the food. It was just all around a great week.”
Caddies don’t receive gold medals at the Olympics and it was for this reason that Schauffele gifted Kaiser a golden ring as a more-than-satisfactory consolation. This was one of many signs of the pair’s close-knit relationship.
They’ve also competed in several Ryder Cups and Presidents Cups together. Kaiser has previously said that he wouldn’t work for anyone else, so don’t expect this link to be the latest player-caddie split on tour.
If we are to assume that caddies receive 10% of a player’s total earnings from an event, Kaiser has banked about $5.7 million for himself in Schauffele’s PGA Tour career.
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