Why Justin Thomas Owes RBC Heritage Millions to Xander Schauffele

Justin Thomas won the 2025 RBC Heritage with one of his best putting performances in recent memory. Thomas led the field in strokes gained putting at +10.472.

Naturally, this did not go unnoticed by the press. When asked to comment on the subject, Thomas revealed how one of his main competitors helped him improve drastically from one year to the next.

“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.’ So he came out with me, and he just was asking me a bunch of different questions…”

Schauffele finished the 2024 season with two major titles and ranked as World No. 2. But that did not stop him from lending a helping hand to his colleague who, as it often happens, a few months later beat him by eight strokes and took home a $3.6 million paycheck at the RBC Heritage.

Thomas said the main takeaway from his conversation with Schauffele was the realization that he had lost consistency in his putting.

“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…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, 2017-18’. I was very, very regimented of the things that I did…”

The now 16-time PGA Tour winner also reflected on the importance of sticking to a plan to sustain results in this important part of the game.

“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…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.”

Justin Thomas’ improvement from one season to the next is remarkable. Suffice it to say that he finished 2024 with a negative stroke gained putting (-0.478, 174th on the PGA Tour), while he is the 24th best putter on the circuit so far in 2025 with a +0.459 stroke gained putting.

Thomas carded rounds of 61, 69, 69 and 68 at the 2025 RBC Heritage to finish tied with Andrew Novak at 17-under. The two-time major champion needed just one hole in sudden death to defeat his opponent and claim his first title in almost three years.

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