By Camilla Tait Robb
Ahead of the first Rolex Series event of the year, we sit down with Jayden Schaper to talk through his incredible breakthrough, and how it came from finally realising what it takes for him to play his best.
Jayden Schaper had one of the best possible starts to a DP World Tour season in recent memory. He’d been edging toward a breakthrough for five years: multiple top tens, runner-up finishes across Tours, and a standout 2025 season with nine top tens including two third-place finishes. And then, in the space of two weeks, everything arrived at once. A runner-up to start the season. A first win in a play-off at home. A second a week later in Mauritius, sealed by a chip-in that looked like it belonged in a highlight reel rather than real life.
Even at the time, Schaper seemed stunned by the shift — a trajectory change that has him leading the 2026 Race to Dubai and sitting inside the world’s top 60.
“The last three weeks have been incredible,” he said then. “I don’t even know what to say. That’s just such an insane way to finish a tournament. I wait five years for the first title and then the following week to get the second... it’s so cool.”
But the moment that stayed with him came later. Sitting with friends in the warm Mauritian dark, watching them take turns trying to recreate the shot he refused to hit again. That was when it sank in — the culmination of working out what it takes for him to play his best, and finally being able to capitalise on it.
He didn’t hit another one. “I said, I’m not hitting another shot — I’m leaving it as is,” he laughs. “But you guys can try.” None came close. And as he watched them — the laughter, the disbelief, the replaying of a moment that already felt half myth — he realised what the last five years had been building toward.
Five years ago, Schaper was the teenager who wanted to play everything. Freshly professional, South Africa’s former top amateur had a glittering junior résumé and early success, including Sunshine Tour Rookie of the Year honours in 2021. But he was spreading himself too thin.
“When you first come out, you want to play everything,” he says. “You’re excited, you want to make the most of the opportunity.” He chased starts across continents, stacking HotelPlanner Tour weeks on top of DP World Tour weeks on top of Sunshine Tour weeks, convinced that volume equalled progress.
At first, it worked. Then fatigue caught up.
“It took me close to two years, maybe two and a half, to realise you can’t play every event,” he says now. “You go out playing five, six, seven weeks in a row — it’s just not doable. You burn yourself out.”
He watched other players do the same. “You see a lot of guys trying to split themselves and play too many events,” he says. “Then they get to the end of the year and they’ve split themselves too far across.”
He’s always been a prolific note taker, the notes app in his phone stuffed with information about things he’s learnt from lessons, from events, from influential people. Swing thoughts, feelings and reminders he’ll habitually look back over in down time, whether that’s at night before bed or on a plane.
There’s one note in his phone he refers to often.
“It's from when I was still an amateur," he says. "I was able to play golf with Jacques Kallis. And it's just about that he was never on top of his game. As a golfer, you're always going to be out there as your B, C, and D, so you're going to learn how to compete at that level.”
That mindset helped him reshape his approach. He began planning in smaller blocks of four, five, six events at a time, entering everything but committing only when the season’s rhythm revealed itself.
“We never make quick decisions,” he says. “We’ll enter all of them and then pick and choose as we go.” He learned to leave space. To rest. To trust that freshness wasn’t indulgence.
The results followed. His name appeared on leaderboards with a regularity that made people look twice. In 2023, he finished 104th on the Race to Dubai despite starting the season without membership. In the following two seasons, he qualified for the DP World Tour Play-Offs. Even without a win, he was always there, always close.
“I’d rather have ten top tens than miss cut, miss cut, and then somehow win,” he says. “I want to be competing every week.”
A huge part of that consistency came from learning to trust himself — and to make big decisions. By the time he reached Munich last year, he felt the drag of mental fatigue after playing six of eight weeks.
“I wasn’t playing my best golf,” he says. “The weeks can drag on if you’re not playing well. You keep pushing because any week can change your whole season.”
So he did something he’d never done before: he stopped.
From mid-July to late August, Schaper took a proper break. “I went to Cyprus with my girlfriend and her family,” he says. “That’s probably the first break I’ve had in a very long time. It was a really nice, refreshing time away from the game. When I came back, I felt refreshed and ready to go again.”
It took a few events to find rhythm, but by France he was playing some of his best golf. A top ten there, a top five in Spain, another top ten in India ahead of a strong finish to the year that set the stage for what came next.
And then came the breakthrough: not one win, but two, in the space of three surreal weeks.
The Nedbank had set the tone. Finally in an event he’d wanted to play since he was a child, Schaper was the supreme combination of confident and relaxed during a runner-up finish on a week he called as enjoyable as he’s ever had on Tour.
“It’s always an event I’ve wanted to play in,” he says. “I went there most years as a junior and amateur, watching all the big names. I was one of those youngsters trying to get signatures and golf balls. The crowds were insane. I had a lot of friends and family there. It was one of the most enjoyable weeks I’ve had on Tour.”
Heading to the Alfred Dunhill Championship, momentum followed quietly and turned into maiden victory as close to home as he could have ever imagined. Things were comfortable, too.
Just 25 minutes from his house, he slipped into a comfortable rhythm, with a low-intensity practice week thanks to relentless rain and a tournament reduced to 54-holes.
“I knew my game was in good form,” he says. “I didn’t want to overdo it. The range was flooded, the chipping green was soaked. So it was a low-intensity week.”
He didn’t start well at one over after nine holes, but the thought of friends and family arriving for the weekend sharpened him.
“I was thinking, 'well, I’ve got to do something now',” he says. “I sat down, went through the process, and things clicked.” A 29 on the back nine vaulted him into the tournament.
On Sunday, he surged again, three birdies in four holes from the 14th pushing him into a play-off. And once he was there, he felt at home.
“Once you’re in a play-off, it’s you or him,” he says. “You’ve got a 50 per cent chance — a lot higher than starting the week with 150 guys.”
The win was special. Sharing it was even better.
“You always think how cool it would be to see your friends running onto the green popping champagne,” he says. “Having my uncle and one of my best mates do that... they loved it as much as I did. It’s a memory we’ll always share.
“You don't get a lot of opportunity to kind of play in front of your friends and family, let alone win your first event with all your friends and your family and start with everyone there. To be able to do that was pretty special."
Some players would have claimed their first win and taken the next week off to celebrate, but not Schaper, and especially not Mauritius, which is a place he’s been visiting with his family since childhood. It helped that it was the end of the season too, and he knew a break was looming.
“I've always known, like, if I win the previous week, I always wanted to go on and kind of continue that thing because it means I’m in good form," he says. "I love Mauritius, I love the ocean, I love to snorkel, I love to spend time on the beach. It doesn’t really feel like it’s a tournament.”
Again, Schaper felt comfortable, and it led to a second win that was pure theatre, sealed by that 45-yard chip-in.
“If you put me there another ten times, I don’t know if I’d chip it in again,” he laughs.
Those two weeks didn’t transform him so much as confirm him. They validated the slow, sometimes frustrating work of figuring out what his game needs — space, rest, rhythm, trust. If he ever forgets, he only needs to go back to his notes app.
“I just wrote down something to remind myself that I'm out here for a reason and I know that my game's good enough now," he says. "Basically just little notes and what my thought processes were going into the week, what my swing thoughts were and kind of the positions that I was feeling.”
That’s the version of himself he trusts now. The player who knows when to push and when to pause. And that’s why, standing at the start of a season already promising so much, he feels ready to push on.
“I’m proud,” he says. “All the work paid off. But you want to keep going. You want to win more.”
His goals are clear. “Obviously you want to finish the year off by earning one of those PGA TOUR cards,” he says. “I think it looks pretty good right now. But no matter how the rest of the year goes, I’d still put it down as a successful year — getting my first win and my second win.”
He wants more than that, though. “You want to finish as high up on the Race to Dubai as possible,” he says. “And give myself the opportunity to play in a couple of Majors now, because I haven’t played a Major yet.”
After five years of figuring himself out with the travel, the scheduling, the rest, the rhythm, the mental load, Jayden Schaper finally knows what he needs to break through.
And now that he’s worked it out, he’s hungry for whatever comes next.
