The last 12 months have been a little bit of everything: a career Grand Slam, a Ryder Cup upset. With 2026 just around the corner, our writers look back at 2025’s most memorable moments and explain why they mattered. Here are the top 15 articles of the year.
No.15 – Zero torque putter movement
After JJ Spawn’s 64-foot bomb clinched the U.S. Open victory and captured the attention of international golf, he tossed his LAB Golf DF3 putter into the air. It was somehow a perfect fit, but the putter seemed to stay square the entire time.
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Spaun’s breakthrough win at Oakmont highlighted the major shift toward “zero torque” putters at both the highest levels of golf and in the recreational game, as the win marked the first major title for a player using a “zero torque” model.
With more and more low-torque putters being sold every day, Jacob Davidson, Odyssey’s vice president of product strategy, told GOLF that a “game improvement” putter category may be created like other club categories.
“Maybe, just maybe, for the first time, we’re starting to see a dichotomy in putting styles between the everyday golfer and the best players in the world,” Davidson said. — Jack Hirsch
No.14 – “Happy Gilmore 2” takes the golf world by storm
The budget was eye-popping, the star power was dizzying, and the entertainment value was… debatable.
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Enough about Capital One’s The Match.
This year’s true golf-themed pop culture extravaganza, one that actually drew a sizable audience, was a cinematic sequel that proudly leaned into its own nihilism while pulling every lever of the modern multiplatform marketing machine.
Please admit that. I watched “Happy Gilmore 2”. — Josh Saens
No.13 – A big 2025 (and a big 2026) for Joaquin Niemann
225 was a year of change for LIV Golf. There was a change at the top and a change in format. But on the course, one of the breakaway league’s stars was seen dominating the 54-hole circuit.
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Joaquin Niemann won. Then I won again and again and again. The 27-year-old Chilean won five times from Adelaide to England in 2025 and Jon Rahm also made a bold statement about his place in professional golf.
“I think Joaquin is pretty underrated in golf these days due to a lot of circumstances,” Rahm said after Niemann’s victory at LIV UK in July. “He’s one of the best players in the world and he continues to prove that. … I don’t know the numbers. I don’t know. My guess is that obviously things other than the majors, the LIV, are pushing him back. That’s not a true reflection. He’s definitely a top-10 player in the world right now. I’m being conservative.” — Josh Schrock
No.12 – J.J. Spawn kills Oakmont
It was raining, and as I crouched by the greenery, my battle to keep my notebook dry and write down my thoughts at the same time was just beginning. JJ Spaun, 80 feet away from me, had better things to worry about. Spahn went for a 64-foot birdie on Oakmont’s par-4 18th with the U.S. Open trophy on the line.
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Successfully he won, but no one expected it – not in this weather, not from the parking lot. However, if he made a good lag putt here, he would have made a par against Robert McIntyre, who was waiting to score, and would have likely won by one stroke.
You know what happened next. He drained the water. But remember what happened elsewhere? While I jockeyed for position among the soggy media and while the fans around the green focused on Spawn’s celebration, some of the best moments after the win happened elsewhere. — Josh Berhow
No.11 – internet invitation
There is no way around this. If you want to understand a year in golf, you need to familiarize yourself with the questionable alarm clock habits of failed professional golfers.
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The journey from a year full of possibilities to the oversleeping controversy that defined golf’s relationship with the internet today begins with Luke Kwon, a former PGA Tour pro and current YouTube golf star.
Kwon is one of many key figures on YouTube, perhaps the story of golf this year. And at the Internet Invitational, arguably YouTube’s story of the year, Kwon played an even more important role: heel.
Every good story needs a villain, and it’s clear that a made-for-the-internet, half-reality show, half-influencer golf tournament needs one as well. Kwon’s failure to make it to the opening session of the Internet Invitational sparked the Internet wildfire that became the Internet Invitational. — James Colgan
No.10- Joan a sinful Arenites and 3.
At the season-ending CME Globe Tour Championship, Titicle asserted herself as the LPGA Tour’s newest queen, winning by four strokes and earning $4 million in prize money for the second consecutive year. It wasn’t just the three wins that set her apart from other players. She was named Rolex Player of the Year and won her second Vale Trophy. Titicle’s consistency has earned her some impressive records, including a new scoring average of 68.68 (0.02 better than Annika’s Sorenstam’s 2002 record) and a new single-season earnings record of $7,578,330. Titikul played in 20 games and had 14 top-10 finishes, ending the season with plenty of prospects.
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“I remember the day I came to Dallas chasing Kroger,” she said. “I cried so much that I put ice packs in my eyes. I remember that. And I went ahead and took a picture like this. It’s strange. But what I want to tell myself is that the day you get there, or the day you like, you know, the happiness in your life, this day will come. Just like the day of sadness.
“So just like what you’ve gone through in your career doesn’t define you, it doesn’t define me as Gino.” — Jess Marksbury
No.9 – Tiger Woods’ next role
One of the oddities of covering professional golf, and one of the real pleasures from a scenery and lodging standpoint, is that the sport’s most iconic figures are guaranteed to speak once a year at a relatively cold, field-limited golf tournament in a quiet corner of the Bahamas.
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So the week after Thanksgiving, I flew to Nassau, where the main event of the Hero World Challenge (in honor of Hideki Matsuyama) was Tiger Woods’ pre-tournament press conference, his first public give-and-take in months. He arrived two minutes early, stayed for 30 minutes, and told us how he envisions his future as it relates to professional golf. He is still recovering from back surgery and has hinted he will return to play, but for the first time in Woods’ long injury history, the assembled media seemed equally interested in his golf-related activities off the course. Woods was sharp and cautious. He connected his past to his future. And he was unusually frank for someone like him. The line I always come back to is:
“I know I haven’t said much, but I’m trying to say as much as I can because there are so many moving parts to this and it’s always changing,” Woods said of the future of the PGA Tour. — Dylan Detier
No.8 – Tommy Fleetwood breaks through
Would Tommy Fleetwood be on our Greatest Moments in Golf of 2025 list if he hadn’t won?
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This argument is at least persuasive and should serve as your compass. But thanks to a much-needed win in the Tour Championship, we no longer have to ask that question. Victory shows a person’s humanity, but defeat tests it. Perhaps no player this year has been as resilient in dire conditions as Fleetwood…only that when he reached his peak, he took everyone along with him. — Nick Piastowski.
No.7 – Birth of TGL
Arriving in early 2025, it was something so new and bold that everyone seemed to be paying close attention. It was the night of the launch of the mixed reality simulator golf league known as TGL.
To understand why 24 of the world’s best golfers were interested in participating, we needed to see it for ourselves, so GOLF sent two reporters to Florida to check it out firsthand. There were some bumps along the way on TGL. Now you can get live insight, not just from those watching at home, but from the players with microphones to the actual fans in the stands. We believe TGL has made important adjustments to make Season 2 even better than Season 1. I would like to keep an eye on whether they can live up to their claims. For now, let’s remember what the night of the launch was like.. — Sean Zack
No.6 – Keegan Bradley’s big decision
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When the PGA of America surprisingly named Keegan Bradley as its 2025 Ryder Cup captain in the summer of 2024, the writing was on the wall for the dilemma he was about to face.
“I grew up wanting to play in the Ryder Cup. I grew up wanting to compete with these guys, so it was heartbreaking not to play. It really was,” Bradley said. “But at the end of the day, I was chosen to do the job. I was chosen to be captain.”
But the story didn’t end just with Bradley’s decision not to play. That was just the beginning. — Josh Schrock
No.5- Europe wins Ryder Cup again
Sunday evening press conferences for Ryder Cup winners are always lively, especially when Europeans have won 11 of the past 15. That includes a 2025 game at Bethpage Black, captain Luke Donald’s second time in charge.
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But the problem is that the European team’s winning formula is no longer a secret, at least not to both the captain and the team. They have a sense of unity. They have continuity. And they have a buy-in that unites players in a way that the Americans have not been able to duplicate.
“Badges and Boys” is how Justin Rose described the team’s brotherhood after Europe’s 15-13 win. “Honestly, that’s all that matters.” —Alain Bastable
No.4 – confusion at bethpage
I spent six years counting down my Ryder Cup days at Bethpage. Golf’s biggest show was held at my home course, not far from my hometown. This venue, I thought, represented everything that was good and decent about the sport. It was supposed to be one of the highlights of my career, but a bunch of jockeyers who couldn’t tell the difference between a red course and a stop sign spent six hours on a Saturday afternoon giving the place a bad name.
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The truth is, the Bethpage Ryder Cup wasn’t a bug in the system. That has been a feature of professional golf that has been allowed to fester for far too long. The exact shape of the problem varies from place to place, but its general aspects never change. Ticketing system too expensive. A “tournament experience” that encourages confusion and consumption. Security strategy overwhelmed by golf’s logistical challenges. A crowd of social media addicts and a small group of villains driven by a unique sociopathic instinct for viral fame. — James Colgan
No.3 – Scottie Scheffler dominated (again)
We do not mean to downplay Scottie Scheffler’s accomplishments in 2025. There were several accomplishments among them. Instead, we want to understand them. And that brings us to the next question.
Did Scottie Scheffler’s best moment of the year come at a press conference?
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That moment came in mid-July at a press conference ahead of the British Open Championship, where he won his fourth major title. Two months earlier, he won his third major at the PGA Championship, a success that prompted Doug Ferguson of the Associated Press to ask, “What was the longest Scheffler celebrated a win, and what was his most devastating loss?”
Mr. Scheffler then spoke for about five minutes. You may have already heard his answer, but it remains a lasting testament to his brilliance on display in 2025. — Nick Piastowski
2nd place – golf’s new sheriff
Golf fans could be forgiven for rolling their eyes as another year passes without any meaningful progress on unifying the men’s game or on the larger metrics of the women’s game. In that sense, 2025 was not sexy at all. But this year, there was momentum toward change in professional golf that was far more doable, tangible, and meaningful than it appeared. And why? The answer is simple. It’s “leadership.”
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While it would normally feel wrong to rank executive hiring as one of the biggest topics of 2025, there is some credibility to that lofty ranking. The previous generation of professional golf’s leadership changed a lot, but its final stages at the helm were marked by a period of stagnation as battle lines were drawn and rules were set. In the months since these leadership changes, there’s been a renewed sense of vigor in reimagining golf as we know it and as we watch it. New leadership may involve more than just changing the curtain. — Sean Zach
No. 1 – Rory McIlroy’s Grand Slam victory
The waiting is truly the hardest part, and what made Rory McIlroy’s win at Augusta in April the single greatest moment of the year of golf is that millions of us, along with McIlroy and especially his parents, had been waiting forever for that moment. We queued for years, months, days, hours, minutes, and finally excruciating seconds.
The putts were rolling in 7:16:22 and 7:16:23. I heard the sound of a ball marker falling. It fell at 7:16:24. Rory’s ball fell to the bottom of the hole. Rory himself fell to the ground, the knees of his white pants falling onto the green grass of the 18th green. he perked up the atmosphere. Rose watched. McIlroy’s caddy, Harry Diamond, looked on. Nantz and Faldo watched. His parents, his wife, his daughters, his fans, his opponents, his employees, his fans in green coats, his fans all over the world are cheering, stomping, waving and raising their hands because they care too much. We all cared too much. For about 10 years, we cared too much. — michael bamberger
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