Xander Schauffele. Richard Heathcote

It was only a matter of time before a 2023 Ryder Cupper said something that would turn into bulletin board material. And it looks like Xander Schauffele has thrown the first stone. It doesn’t matter if it’s accidental or intentional. It’s happened and we’re sure the Europeans are using this as motivation.

In a Q&A with Gabrielle Herzig of Sports Illustrated, Schauffele broke down quite a few Ryder Cup questions, including how the team are feeling about the international losing streak. Schauffele went into a good amount of detail on how the team is feeling, what happened at Whistling Straits and what it’ll take to finally win overseas.

“Nothing special,” he said. “It may sound weird, but we didn’t do anything special at Whistling Straits. All the boys who were there are aware of that, and we have quite a few repeat guys on the team. We’ll stick behind our stats, our team leaders and our captains and go do our thing.”

Let’s see Team Europe hang “We didn’t do anything special” on a banner if they defend their home turf once again. That’s the back-and-forth all Ryder Cups should have.

The US team have allegedly not discussed their losing ways abroad and are just trying to focus on what’s coming up. That’s strong leadership at work. Always look forward.

“We’re not really tainted by that sort of talk,” Schauffele added. “People told me we haven’t won since before I was born. I think that’s great, because I don’t really care. I don’t think anyone really cares. No one has talked about it, because of course, no one likes talking about losing.

“It isn’t really something that’s been brought up a lot to us. I’m not on social media a crazy amount, so I haven’t really seen it. But none of us are talking about anything of that nature. We’re looking forward to the week and bringing that thing back.”

The US team’s group chat is apparently “firing up for sure”, especially since Schauffele couldn’t make it out to Italy earlier in the month due to a “family matter”. Insider intel certainly couldn’t hurt but there’s also the assumption that things might not be what they seem: “I’m sure the Europeans tried to trick it up a little bit for our boys that went to go practise.”

He may have just been answering a question, but “nothing special” is certainly a nice little rallying cry for a European squad trying to keep up their winning ways. Whether an upset is in the works is yet to be seen, but we do finally know for certain that Schauffele will be eating “some sort of pasta” while in Italy. The breaking news never stops.