Talk about a year of weird injuries to some of the top golfers on the planet.
First, it was Scottie Scheffler jamming a wine glass stem into his hand, which kept him out of action for several weeks.
Then, it was announced that Xander Schauffele had pulled muscles in his ribcage, an injury that sidelined him for two months.
Thankfully, both have recovered and are all set to tee it up at Bay Hill this week in the Arnold Palmer Invitational, which marks the fourth Signature Event on the 2025 PGA Tour calendar.
Xander Schauffele is thrilled to be back in action at the Arnold Palmer Invitational
Scheffler’s hand was surgically repaired to remove glass shards, while Schauffele had more of a rest and recovery plan.
“It's great to be back, nice to see some familiar faces,” Schauffele said in his pre-tournament press conference. “Definitely had some time to reflect in, you know, what was six weeks. Sounds pretty short, but felt like a lifetime for me, so I'm just really happy to be here.”
Of course, ”here” is a long golf course with tall, thick, severe, ball-eating rough. If a ball bounces in, a search party has to be formed to find it. This stuff is probably the worst thing to hit from for anybody who has strained muscles, especially strained muscles in the rib area.
Schauffele first noticed the problem a few days before Christmas.
“Even at Sentry, I kind of told myself, 'Oh, I'll be back with my team, you know, I've kind of had this before and it went away,'” he added.
He hit drives the Monday before the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines and felt okay.
“Then I tried to play nine holes and then things started to feel worse and worse. And the doctors are like, 'nothing's worse than hitting a wedge out of thick rough and having everything come to a complete stop – You could make it worse,’” Schauffele added.
That made the decision to rest very easy for him.
When asked what the problem was and where it was, the two-time major winner explained that the radiologist told him it was an “intercostal strain, with a small tear in the cartilage.”
When asked where he had the problem, he pointed to the area of his right ribs just below the sternum.
“I don't know what you want to call, T-6, -7, -8 area,” he said, adding that it was about in the middle of his rib cage.
When he was at home, sitting and watching television, he admitted to watching golf and says it didn’t bother him.
“It was sort of abrupt, like if I would wake up and roll over to grab my phone, or to grab something, or sneeze if I'm like sitting on the couch in a weird position,” he noted. “Then, once we got rid of the inflammation, it was only when I started twisting and moving that it started to hurt again. But it's all part of the process.”
The intercostal muscles attach the ribs to each other, which means it can hurt when he coughs or twists the wrong way.
When asked where he had the problem, the world's third-ranked player pointed to the area below his right ribs and below the sternum.
The plan was rest. Then, though, there were more ultrasounds, MRIs, and CT scans. And at long last, his doctors finally cleared him to return to action.
“There's minimal discomfort, but as long as I know I'm not hurting myself and the scans are clean, then I'm going to be in a good place,” he said.
What did he do to truly test it out?
“One of my first things I did yesterday when I played, teed off on 10 and hit the fairway, and then first thing I did was throw a ball in the rough and take a wipe at it,” he explained. “I was telling Austin (his caddie), if this doesn't go well, then I'm going to get in my car and drive back to Jupiter."
Schauffele obviously isn't going anywhere and will resume his 2025 campaign on Thursday afternoon alongside Justin Thomas.