After eight months and 39 tournaments, the 2025 PGA Tour season has concluded. The calendar is approaching next year’s Sentry, and the clock continues to click and time continues to pass us, leaving us even more confused from the latest master. Given the large number of events played and the number of storylines, it’s easy to forget that this past season has been done.
Kapalua’s season opener appears to have been years since Matsuyama Hideki set the highest scorer ever in relation to the first week of the year. Coming in the final week of the season, Matsuyama maintained only one top-10 finish in his 2025 campaign, but that’s a big one.
There will be some volatile stats like the ones mentioned above, winners who are out of the blue, and characters that are unlikely to appear — it was all part of what made the 2025 season such a memorable one. Oh yeah, Scotty Schaeffler and Rory McIlroy divide their own noise quite a bit throughout the year.
Give them a year-end award that allows them to remember exactly the eight months that occurred.
PGA Tour Player of the Year
Scotty Scheffler: Wash, rinse and repeat. In the fourth season, Schaeffler was the best player on the PGA Tour, but even this year was a step away from his previous efforts. He won the major championship from Augusta National for the first time in his career, which kicked him up to the immortal path and made a huge leap when he slept about his sleep in his most complete performance at the open.
Adding a postseason victory, a defensive success at the monument and a record-breaking victory in his home town in Texas, Schaeffler definitely left after a slow start to the year thanks to unlikely injuries during his holidays. He was the first golfer since Tiger Woods to lock in a back-to-back season of five or more wins, and did so by leading the next statistical category on the PGA Tour.
Take a deep breath (some have been removed for brevity)
- Official money
- Total strokes were obtained
- Stroke earned tee green
- Strokes were obtained from the tee
- Strokes got an approach
- GIR percentage from fairway
- scramble
- Scoring average (adjusted)
- Average score (actual)
- Average score before cut
- Per breaker
- It’s bounced back
- Birdie to Bogie Ratio
- Birdie Average
- birdie or better percentage
- Bogies avoidance
- Par 4 Scoring
- Par 5 Scoring
- Final round performance
- Average round 1 score
- Round 2 Scoring Average
- Front 9 scoring average
- Back 9 average score
- Early score average
- The slow average
- Best Sub-Par Round Streak
- YTD rounds in the 60s streak
- Top 10 finishes streak
- I’ll win
Tournament of the Year
Master: Why is it other than the master? McIlroy solidified his place in the history chronology by completing his career grand slam in the most Rory fashion ever. McIlroy began the final round with a two-stroke lead and visited each of his major Championship Graves on the way to lifelong glory.
The date with Bryson Deccanbaugh in the final round began with McIlroy’s most unstable fashion as Deccanbaugh walked from the Second Green with his name on the leaderboard. McIlroy finally passes by him, overcoming all his previous predicaments at this stage while missing out on Augusta National’s ghosts, including poor wedge plays, short putts for the Greens and tee shots of No. 10.
Other characters such as Scheffler, LudvigÅberg, and Patrick Reed all joined the contest, but ultimately they are the companions of European Justin Rose who rose to the occasion. After his 71-hole bogey, the British made a birdie in his final hole, applying additional pressure to McIlroy.
McIlroy met Rose in the playoffs as he couldn’t go up and down after he had a wedge from the middle of the fairway and missed the green right. Rory corrected his mistake in regulation at the same club from the same yard and eventually got his long-awaited green jacket.
This year’s shot
McIlroy’s approach to No. 15 in the final round of Masters: McIlroy experienced it all in No. 15 towards his victory at Augusta National. He pushed the ball into the water on Thursday, made a double bogey, set up a lonely eagle on Saturday, pounding all pearl pearls in the final round, stabilizing the ship after hitting two holes into rocky waters.
There were so many incredible swings from McIlroy, and in this Masters victory, the playoff wedge – playoff wedge to seal the deal, and a long iron pushed Rose up to 17th. Certainly, as Jim Nantz tagged it, it was a “one-in-a-lifetime shot.”
Breakout Player
JJ Spaun: From fighting for his job in 2024 to becoming the top 10 player in the world, no one proved as much as Spawn (even to himself). The season began with Florida’s solid swing, including a runner-up finish at the PGA National and a playoff loss to McIlroy in the Player Championship. Spaun’s campaign was characterized by his iron play and a major step in its current rapid learning curve.
He said the player’s losses did a lot for his confidence as he knew he belonged to the best of the world, and he was the US Open, coming out of a busy leaderboard on a wet, rainy, and really ugly Sunday at the Oakmont Country Club. Spaun was a few times away from winning not only majors but two other biggest tournaments on the PGA Tour schedule, resulting in another playoff loss to the Roses in the postseason. He climbed as high as the sixth in the world and automatically qualified for his first US Ryder Cup team.
The most disappointing player
Xander Schauffele: World No. 3 saw his season hit a speed bump when he was forced to take time out of the game due to the intercostal burden of his ribs. He returned to poor results during Florida swings and his game improved during his years, but never returned to his 2024 level, when he was clearly the second best player in the world and perhaps the most complete player.
Schauffele did not score a top five finish in 2025, missing the Tour Championship for the first time in his career, placing 42nd in the FedEx Cup standings. He scored a top-10 finish in two majors, but Schaufele’s 2025 was a lost season considering he reached the previous year.
The most heartwarming moment
Tommy Fleetwood wins the FedEx Cup: Many stories ended in 2025, with Fleetwood among them. After experiencing unbearable losses at the Travelers Championship and the summer FedEx St. Jude Championship, the British appeared in the season finale of the PGA Tour and did not win their resume.
He changed everything with an impressive victory at East Lake, raising the FedEx Cup trophy after a decision was made in May to change the format of the Tour Championship, as all players began uniformly. Fleetwood took advantage of it and continued knocking on the door before finally stepping on. He arrested the biggest pay and season of his career, along with many embraces from friends, family and PGA Tour peers. He also placed the bow on the best season of his career. From a statistical perspective, only Schaeffler and McIlroy were superior in 2025.
The strangest winner
Brian Campbell: If anything, this is a compliment. In an age of golf where speed is everything and players are trying to swing the club as quickly as possible, Campbell took a different approach, aiming to hit the moon and understand it from there. 2025 was finally rewarded. Campbell finished last and last with driving distance (279 yards) and ball speed (163 mph), but he still finished third with two wins in the campaign.
He won the Mexican Open bomber paradise, won the longest player-through playoffs on the PGA Tour (Aldrich Potgieter), and once again won the playoffs at John Deere Classic. In his other start of 20, Campbell didn’t collect any other top 30 finishes, missed 10 cuts and was forced to retreat twice. He watched the weekends in 2025 10 times in total, and by Sunday, the winner’s circle had found 20% of the time.
This year’s story
Keegan Bradley could potentially function as the Ryder Cup playing the Captain: It was possible that Bradley would include himself on the US Ryder Cup roster when it turned out to be what was happening outside the ropes Most conversations in 2025. His steady start to his year did not realize such a move before Bradley went through a series of finishes consisting of T8 at the PGA Championship, T7 at the Memorial, T33 at the US Open and victory at the Travelers Championship.
The volume was dialed all the way through, and from there the questions became more permanent. Bradley ultimately decided not to play a double role – Focusing on his captain instead – for next month’s Ryder Cup, The most selfish moves move from the leader of sports. After being selected in 2023, Bradley gave an even better performance in 2025, but chose himself as his own captain was the only item to play his first Ryder Cup for over a decade.
