Entertainment
How Xander Schauffele influenced Justin Thomas’ putting improvement
Thomas snapped three-year winless drought at RBC Heritage with lengthy playoff birdie
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Join us on WhatsAppPrior to Sunday, Justin Thomas hadn’t made a putt of significant length to win a PGA TOUR event. He changed that with a winning 21-foot birdie on the first playoff hole at the RBC Heritage, also snapping a winless drought that dated to the 2022 PGA Championship.
“Been fortunate to have a bunch of tap-ins, but I’ve never made a putt (of length), and that was pretty cool,” Thomas said afterward. “That was as fun as I thought it would be.”
Thomas is amidst a putting renaissance in 2025, so it’s fitting that his drought-busting title at Harbour Town Golf Links included a heroic putt to win. Thomas ranks No. 24 this season in Strokes Gained: Putting, a significant improvement from No. 174 in 2024 and No. 135 the year prior. Thomas’ ball-striking numbers have remained strong throughout the winless drought, but it’s hard to win on TOUR without gaining strokes on the greens.
Enter Xander Schauffele. Last fall, Schauffele spent two to three hours with Thomas on a practice putting green, asking a series of questions that pushed Thomas to reconsider his overall attitudes to putting. Schauffele wasn’t necessarily coaching Thomas on putting technique; he was more so a putting therapist.
Schauffele’s questions resonated with Thomas. The Kentuckian was trying too many different things, he realized, and hadn’t spent ample time focusing on the fundamentals that unlock elite putting. In his winner’s press conference on Hilton Head Island, Thomas was asked to explain the recent statistical uptick on the greens. He quickly launched into a monologue that credited Schauffele, a fellow two-time major winner and longtime U.S. Team teammate at the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup.
“I called Xander 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 Sunday evening. “So he came out with me, and he just was asking me a bunch of different questions. … He doesn’t leave any box unchecked. 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.’
“So I just was talking to him about this process and how he reads greens and how he sees things and his practice and everything, 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.’ Okay. The more I was talking, I’m like, ‘I don’t do any of the things that I used to do in my best putting years.’ (In) 2017-18, I was very, very regimented of the things that I did, and how he said it is: I had a home base and I had no home base. I had things that I did, but it was a very vague bag of thingsf and there was no consistency to it. I feel like I used to have a very good home base of fundamentals and things that I did.
“So it honestly, while he helped, it was more of the questions he 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, 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.”
The results have validated the process. Thomas ranked third at the RBC Heritage in SG: Putting, gaining roughly 5.5 strokes on the field across the week, and he’s pacing toward the best putting season of his decade-long PGA TOUR career.
If Thomas is rekindling the putting prowess from his early years as a pro, it could spell trouble for his peers. He ranked inside the top 50 on TOUR in SG: Putting in both 2017 and 2018, winning seven times across that span. Since then, he hasn’t ranked inside the top 80 for a full season, bottoming out at No. 174 in 2024.
Schauffele knew what an improved Thomas on the greens could mean. He decided to help anyways – perhaps at his own risk.
“I’m very artistic and feel-based in all of my game, and I think once I got to putting and the putting green, I turned into way too mechanical and robotic,” Thomas said, “and that’s not me.
“I’m better off, I call it ‘pro-am putting,’ when it’s like I obviously want to make a putt that I’m hitting in a pro-am, but I’m not grinding on read and thinking about all these different things. I’m pretty much stepping up, give it a look and go, and how often I make putts. It was probably more up here (mentally) than it was anywhere else.”
After a few hours with Schauffele, that message crystallized in Thomas’ head – and it could spark spirited battles between the two for years to come.
Entertainment
Paige Spiranac’s surprising NFL fandom confession triggers heated debate over loyalty, authenticity, and fan culture
The 2026 NFL Draft starts Thursday night in Pittsburgh, and the spotlight isn’t only on prospects and front offices. Golf influencer Paige Spiranac has again found herself pulled into NFL conversation, this time for her open support of multiple teams.
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Join us on WhatsAppWith the Steelers hosting the first round, her long-standing connection to Pittsburgh has resurfaced. But it’s not just about hometown ties. Her broader fandom, which stretches beyond one franchise, continues to draw mixed reactions at a time when fan loyalty is often treated as non-negotiable.
Paige Spiranac roots for 2 NFL teams: Who are they?
Paige Spiranac has never hidden where her loyalties lie, even if they don’t fit the usual mold. She has consistently pointed to her roots while leaving space for other allegiances.
“Both my parents are from Pittsburgh so I’ve been a Steelers ..fan since the day I was born. I also love the Bills. It’s a complicated relationship…Who’s your team?” she previously asked her followers. It’s a candid admission, one that reflects personal history more than calculated fandom.
Still, the reaction has been sharp. NFL culture tends to rew ..
Entertainment
Quiet moments on the course can say a lot about what’s coming next.
Sometimes the most important work happens when nobody is really watching.
Lexi Thompson was out on the 18th green, working through her putting during a practice round ahead of the Chevron Championship in Houston.
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Join us on WhatsAppIt’s a simple scene, but it shows the kind of quiet preparation that goes into these big tournaments—getting the feel of the greens, adjusting to conditions, and building trust in every stroke.
These are the small details that can shape how a player starts when the pressure kicks in.
Entertainment
Predicting what will happen to Bryson DeChambeau and Phil Mickelson if LIV Golf collapses
It looks like LIV Golf is over.
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Join us on WhatsAppThe Saudi Public Investment Fund has reportedly decided that this league simply isn’t worth the hole it’s burning in their pocket, and they’re pulling funds at the end of 2026.
That gives them less than a year to seek new investment. While CEO Scott O’Neil seems confident, it’s going to be extremely difficult to secure funding for a league that is operating at such eye-watering losses.
So this probably pulls the curtain closed on one of the most turbulent, frustrating, confusing, and ridiculous eras in golfing history. Hopefully, we can all return to some reality after the year is over.
But there is still so much uncertainty surrounding golf’s future thanks to this. Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed saw the signs early and jumped ship, but they did that with some leverage. So what on earth is going to happen to the rest of these players who didn’t take the olive branch when it was offered to them?
Feelings will be hurt, and careers will be ended. Let’s take a look.
Jon Rahm rejoins the PGA Tour
Koepka returned to the PGA Tour under the returning member program, which saw him pay $5 million to charity, accept that he’ll receive no FedEx Cup bonus money, and agree he cannot be a sponsor exemption for the 2026 signature events.
That same deal was offered to Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau. They didn’t accept it, but a similar offer will likely be handed out to them again.
If LIV Golf folds, Rahm will not hold the same leverage as Koepka did, but he is a bigger star at this stage of his career. Make no mistake, the PGA Tour will want him back immediately.
But Rahm does risk leaving himself without any options at all. Reed didn’t come straight back to the PGA Tour, so he’s spending a year on the DP World Tour first. You’d imagine Rahm would consider doing the same, but it might not be so easy for him.
Rahm is in a feud with the DP World Tour, as the only one of eight players to reject a deal which would have seen him retain his full-time membership. If Rahm agreed to play in six DP World Tour events this year, then he could have played on both LIV Golf and the tour. He did not agree.
For now, his membership is at risk. So, will it be possible for him to spend a season on the DP World Tour like Reed? Maybe not. That makes it all the more likely that Rahm will be back on the PGA Tour the moment LIV folds.
Bryson DeChambeau does YouTube full-time
With DeChambeau, I don’t think it’s as much of a done deal that he returns to the PGA Tour. Not immediately anyway.
He’s been negotiating his contract with LIV, which expires at the end of this season. During these negotiations, he’s made it very clear that he is completely willing to step away from full-time competition and be a full-time YouTuber.
DeChambeau’s channel has over two million subscribers, so he could feasibly do that with all of the money he’s making there.
He was annoyed to see LIV move to a four-day format, so he could commit himself fully to being the content king. It would be a wild thing to do, but it’s also exactly the kind of move you could see the two-time major winner making.
He could qualify for The Open Championship and the US Open, and earn enough points there to play The Masters and the PGA Championship. It’s possible.
He does seem to live for competition, so maybe YouTube won’t quite scratch the itch, but it is on the table for DeChambeau. At least for a year until his suspension expires. Out of Rahm and DeChambeau, the American is absolutely the least likely to take a deal.
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