A tragic accident robbed Xander Schauffele’s father of his Olympic dream. Now, golf’s golden boy is out to honor him again

Xander Schauffele is congratulated by his father, Stefan Schauffele, after winning the 152nd Open Championship in Troon, Scotland.Sixty-three days. That’s all it took for Xander Schauffele’s life and legacy to change forever. Yet the origins of the golfer’s golden summer stretch back almost four decades – seven years before he was born – to one fateful road in Germany.Long-tarred with the backhanded label of ‘the most talented golfer never to win a major,’ the American shredded that tag with a vengeance, scooping both the PGA Championship and The Open Championship in a stunning two-month stretch.Before that, the 30-year-old’s most prestigious prize was an Olympic gold medal, clinched in Japan in 2021. On Thursday, he will tee off in Paris as the defending champion, but also as a son.Because his father, Stefan Schauffele, never got his shot at The Games. Those dreams of representing Germany in the decathlon were shattered in 1986 when, en route to the national training facility in Stuttgart, the 23-year-old was struck by a drunk driver.“Hit him pretty much head on,” world No. 2 Schauffele told CNN Sport’s Don Riddell.“Went completely blind in his left eye. He was in and out of hospital for two years.”By the time those check-ins finally stopped, Seoul 1988 had come and gone, and with it – given the severity of his injuries – any hopes of an Olympic appearance.Yet fate can have a strange way of fulfilling itself. Hospital doctors introduced Schauffele to golf, a sport that he would then pass on to his son after moving to San Diego, California. The talent quickly became obvious and the 6-foot-3-inch Schauffele senior – fondly nicknamed ‘The Ogre’ – was soon working as his own child’s swing coach.The rest, as they say, is history. Some 38 years after his Olympic dream vanished, Stefan Schauffele went to sleep with a gold medal in bed beside him.“All his wisdom … it derives from his training when he wanted to become an Olympian,” Schauffele explained.“Everything that he’s been through in his life, that trauma that he’s experienced … My dad didn’t want me to feel the trauma but made me realize what the other side looks like as much as he could, just so I’d be more appreciative of what I have and what I’m able to do.”