Xander Schauffele, the world’s No. 2-ranked player and two-time major champion in 2024, has withdrawn from the PGA Tour’s American Express for undisclosed reasons.
Schauffele did not cite a reason. If a player withdraws before the competition begins on Thursdays, he is not required by the Tour to explain.
The beneficiary will be former University of North Florida star Philip Knowles, who lives in Jacksonville. Knowles, who was the first alternate, will make his first start of the 2025 season.
Schauffele tied for 30th in The Sentry, the Tour’s season’s opening event. He did not enter last week’s Sony Open.
That leaves No. 7 Wyndham Clark as the top-ranked player in the field this week at the Pete Dye Stadium Course in La Quinta, Calif.
The American Express has now lost the top two golfers in the world. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler was scheduled to play but hasn’t fully recovered from a hand injury he sustained from a kitchen accident on Christmas Day.
Knowles, ranked No. 651 in the world, is playing on a medical exemption. He has made five cuts in 15 PGA Tour starts since earning his Tour card in 2022 by finishing fourth on the Korn Ferry Tour Finals money list.
World No. 2 Xander Schauffele is a WD from The American Express and is replaced by Philip Knowles.
— PGA TOUR Communications (@PGATOURComms) January 13, 2025
His progress was interrupted the following winter during the week of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am when he severed a nerve in his hand by cutting it on a can lid.
Knowles played a hybrid schedule of PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour events last season, making five of 12 cuts on the Korn Ferry Tour and 2 of 5 on the PGA Tour.
But he ended the season with some momentum making his last two cuts. He tied for 40th in the Black Desert Championship and finished 65th at the RSM Classic.
Philip Knowles was a UNF stand-out
Knowles, from Bradenton, was among the most decorated UNF golfers in school history. He was a three-time All-ASUN player, the ASUN Player of the Year in 2019, the UNF Male Athlete of the Year in 2018 and 2019, a member of the ASUN men’s golf All-Decade team and a three-time ASUN All-Academic player.
By getting the American Express start, Knowles will have to miss the UNF Athletics Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on Jan. 17. He was voted into the UNF Hall of Fame on Dec. 5.
Has Philip Knowles ever played in the American Express?
Knowles has one start in Palm Springs, in 2023. He shot 72-72-68 and missed the 54-hole cut.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: PGA Tour’s Xander Schauffele withdraws from AMEX, Philip Knowles in
