Some PGA Tour stars are tight-lipped when it comes to giving their competitors advice. Others, however, are more generous.
Such was the case with Xander Schauffele and Justin Thomas.
Thomas was a top-50 putter on Tour when he burst onto the scene nearly a decade ago. Then, his skills with the flatstick began a steady decline. By 2023, the two-time major champion ranked T135 on Tour in strokes-gained putting. A year later, 174th.
This season, though, the 31-year-old is back to his old ways, gaining 0.459 strokes on the putting surface, 24th best on Tour. And that helped Thomas end a 1,064-day winless drought Sunday at the RBC Heritage, where he dropped a 21-footer for birdie on the first playoff hole for victory—the longest winning putt of his career.
WALK-OFF WINNER!
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) April 20, 2025
Euphoria for @JustinThomas34! pic.twitter.com/PzxhmmIhVA
So what’s the reason for the turnaround?
A little help from his friend.
“I called Xander Schauffele at the end of last year because I think he’s one of the best putters in fundamentals and not just putting but everything and I was just like, ‘Can I just pick your brain for like two or three hours, just talk to you about putting?’” Thomas said after winning at Harbour Town.
“So he came out with me, and he just was asking me a bunch of different questions. You guys obviously know Xander, but he doesn’t leave any box unchecked. He’s going to—like he said that day, he’s like, ‘If it has anything to do with you potentially improving in golf, I’ve probably done it or tried it.’”
Thomas was certainly learning from one of the best. Schauffele won both the PGA Championship and British Open last year and finished the season ranked 12th on Tour in strokes-gained putting.
Putting, though, is more than just a stroke.
“I just was talking to [Schauffele] about this process and how he reads greens and how he sees things and his practice and everything,” Thomas said, “and it honestly was just being with him, and he would kind of ask something and I was like, ‘Yeah, I used to do that.’ And then he was like, ‘Well, how about something like this. Like, I used to use the string line here.’”
And these putting sessions caused Thomas to have an epiphany.
“The more I was talking,” Thomas said, “I’m like, ‘I don't do any of the things that I used to do in my best putting years.’”
Those things included having a home base of fundamentals when practicing on the greens.
Rather than the instruction, however, Thomas said just talking out his putting routine with Schauffele was the most beneficial part of their time together.
“Honestly, while he helped, it was more of the questions [Schauffele] asked me made me realize that I’m trying basically too hard and I’m trying too many different things versus I think it’s a serious, serious, serious skill to continue to work on the things that you do really well and not doing it differently,” Thomas said, “and I think that’s been more of what it is. I have my fundamentals and things that I do and checkpoints, and I’m sticking to them.”
So far this season, Schauffele’s generosity is paying off—though the world No. 3 downplayed his impact Monday.
“He played great and I don’t really think I had anything do with it, he maybe gave me too much credit. He was asking me some questions and then it ended up being me the one asking him all the questions,” Schauffele said on a conference call in advance of next month’s PGA Championship. “He was searching and maybe trying too hard. He’s done so many good things in the past. He realized he used to do these three, four or five things and the answers were right in front of him.”
But if Thomas edges Schauffele down the stretch at a tournament later this year, will Schauffele regret his tutorial?
This article was originally published on www.si.com as How Xander Schauffele Helped Justin Thomas Fix Putting Woes, Return to Winning.
