Schauffele has said that he wants to earn the No.1 spot in the Official World Golf Ranking someday, but it's not as simple as winning a few more tournaments.

The 2025 season began with Scheffler leading No.2 Schauffele by 6.3727 average points in the OWGR's ranking system, which utilises a two-year rolling period, emphasises players' most recent performances and factors in tournaments' strength of field.

When speaking with reporters on Tuesday ahead of The Sentry in Kapalua last week Schauffele nodded to the dominant year Scheffler had to build such a massive lead in the OWGR. He agreed that he feels "under the radar" - ironic after a year in which he won his first two major championships.

"Yeah, just kind of cruising around right where I want to be," Schauffele said. "It's a wild time. Winning two majors and being further away, or closer to the 30th-ranked player than the first is - hat's off to Scottie. He's a beast."

It's not exactly accurate to say Schauffele is closer to No.30 in the rankings to No.1, but the margin is similar to the gap between Schauffele and World No.22 Aaron Rai of England.

"He just kept winning. Even in sort of his downtime, he won another event, which pushed him even further away," Schauffele said. "So it's one of my goals that will just have to stay on the calendar for a few more years."

Schauffele was referencing Scheffler's victory at the Hero World Challenge in early December, which is not an official PGA Tour event but still counted for ranking points. It capped a historic year for Scheffler, who also won the Masters, the Players Championship and the Olympic gold medal.

 "It's a wild time. Winning two majors and being further away, or closer to the 30th-ranked player than the first is - hat's off to Scottie. He's a beast." - Xander Schauffele.

But Scheffler was not in Hawaii last week as he recovered from surgery on his right hand. He was injured by a broken glass while preparing Christmas dinner and had shards of glass embedded in his palm.

"It's a huge bummer. I hope he's OK," Schauffele said. "I heard he was going to be back for American Express (the tournament in the California desert January 16-19), then you hear he has surgery. I didn't feel, like, too comfortable texting him. It's weird, because we're competitors, but at the same time he's such a nice guy, him and (wife Meredith)."

Saying he tries to focus on the process rather than the results, Schauffele admitted it will "take some time and some patience" to track down the No.1 ranking. 

The PGA Championship and Open Championship winner was asked what area of his game he wants to improve to catch up to Scheffler.

"Around the greens, short game, that's an area that's not bad, it's not nothing special that I do, just good enough. Those are some spots where I could improve, for sure."