Why Xander Schauffele's Wife Was So Emotional After PGA Win: 'She Knows How Much This Means to Me' (Exclusive)

The PGA champion tells PEOPLE his wife, Maya Schauffele, "reminds me of why I love playing golf" after his first major title

After Xander Schauffele won his first major professional golf championship on Sunday, May 19, his wife, Maya Schauffele, couldn't help but become emotional.

Maya made headlines for her candid interview with The Athletic at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky., where she told the outlet she was "blacking out" while watching her husband claim 2024 PGA Championship. "This means everything," she said in the moment.

In an interview with PEOPLE, Xander, 30, explains why the victory made his wife so emotional. "My wife has the most inside track to my emotions on a day-to-day basis, so she just knows how much not winning has been wearing on me," says Xander, whose championship came during his 29th major of his professional career.

Maya talks him "through a lot of the patient moments," the PGA champ says, "and she reminds me of why I love playing golf."

Xander adds, "My wife keeps me grounded, so I know she was emotional just because she knows how much this means to me and she's been so supportive my entire career, and it's really cool for me to share it with her."

Related: Who Is Xander Schauffele's Wife? All About Maya Schauffele

The golfer's brother, Nico Schauffele, and uncle, Gao-Ya Chen, were also on the course as Xander won his first major title. "My brother's been cooking for me for the last year and a half-ish, so he was able to come out to the course Sunday with my wife. He knows how stubborn I can be at times," the player shares.

Xander, who previously won the gold medal in the men's individual stroke play competition at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, recalls often competing against his older brother when they were kids. "But now that we're grown men, we're still very close and I think it's turned more into he just supports me and really just wants me to succeed, and so he knows how much this one meant to me as well," he says.

"And I've been at it for quite some time now and he's been watching me do it growing up and I think he's just super happy for me," Xander adds of his brother.

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Their father, Stefan Schauffele, was in Hawaii during Xander's win. Their mother, Ping-Yi-Chen, was watching from San Diego, Calif., where she and Stefan currently reside.

After clinching the title, Xander shares, "I called them at two different times. I called my dad first and he was crying on the phone. It was right before I took the stand at the podium to receive the trophy, so I quickly had to hang up with him knowing that I wasn't going to be able to fight back tears if I kept talking to him."

He was able to call his mother "about half an hour later" during a media break. "She started crying on the phone too, so I quickly realized I probably had to catch up with my parents after it was all said and done just because I was going to be too emotional in the meantime," he says.

Related: Golfer Xander Schauffele Says His Gold Medal 'Means More' to His Dad, Who Missed Out on Olympics

On the night before the tournament, Stefan sent his son a text message that read, "Steter tropfen höhlt den stein," Golf.com reported. Xander tells PEOPLE it's "one of his German philosophical sayings that he's always referring to," and that the prhase means, "Steady drip caves a stone."

"He's been sort of beating on the same drum for several years," Xander says of his father. "There's a lot of sayings similar to that, and it was a good time for the text for me to just remind myself to just be steady, be steadfast in everything that I do, and it shouldn't change at all even though it's a major Sunday."

Each of the golfer's family members has lent to his success, and Xander's title is a win for all of them. "Everyone's had a different impact in my family. From my mom, to my dad, to my brother, and to now my wife, they've all supported me with the same amount of passion just in different ways. So I think in everyone's own way it was different, and it meant something different to them," he explains.

After the win, the winner and his family stayed in Kentucky for a night to celebrate. "We obviously took some turns drinking out of the trophy and stayed up way too late," Xander shares. "Way later than I normally do, but it was all worth it."

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