With the Masters, PGA Championship and a handful of PGA Tour signature events in the books, the second half of the 2025 golf season is well underway. The U.S. Open is next up at Oakmont Country Club, but even beyond the remaining major championships, the Ryder Cup and Tour Championship are also ahead with the ever-important PGA Tour Player of the Year award perhaps more hotly contested than ever before given the way the season has begun.
Will Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler run away with the rest of the major crowns? Will someone like Sepp Straka or even U.S. Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley surprise given their high level of play? Might Jon Rahm continue his career resurgence on a major stage?
As a means of previewing what’s still to come, our CBS Sports experts sat down to make head-to-head expert picks covering not only the huge forthcoming events but also which golfers they expect to serve as standouts in international competition. Let’s take a look at how we expect the 2025 campaign to play out through this fall. Odds via DraftKings
U.S. Open champion (Oakmont)
Scottie Scheffler (7/2) — He’s running downhill at this point. For the first time in his career, Scheffler is the most well-rounded player in the world (that honor went to Xander Schauffele in 2024), and he will prove why at Oakmont. Without the variables that Pinehurst No. 2 put in his way, Oakmont will allow Scheffler to display his driving prowess, iron excellence, short-game magnificence and his putter, which has soared to new heights. He grabs his fourth major championship in Pittsburgh and heads to The Open with a chance to complete the career grand slam. — Patrick McDonald
Bryson DeChambeau (11-1) — I have my concerns about Bryson’s approach play, but his distance is such a weapon at a place like Oakmont that it will set up incredibly well for him. We saw him at Winged Foot just overpower a difficult course, and while he’s not quite as beefy as he was then, his approach isn’t that different. He’s really good on U.S. Open setups, not just because of the driving but because of his short game and putting consistency. On top of all the actual golf reasons to pick Bryson, it’d just be incredibly fun to have golf’s current big three all picking up major wins going into the Open. — Robby Kalland
Open champion (Royal Portrush)
Tyrrell Hatton (20-1) — The Englishman has sort of lurked in the first two major championships of the season, and once the stage is set across the pond, he will finally play himself into the thick of it. He has three top-20 finishes in the last five Opens, including a T6 result the last time the Claret Jug was handed out at Royal Portrush. He will need to figure out the putter as it has hindered him in 2025, but the switch in speed and surface type in Northern Ireland should help the cause. — McDonald
Jon Rahm (14-1) — I know he hit the eject button late on Sunday at Quail Hollow, but I was genuinely encouraged by Rahm’s play. While he hasn’t won a Claret Jug, Rahm has always looked very comfortable at the Open with four top 10s (and a T11) in seven starts. He got a taste of being back in the mix at the PGA and said afterwards that he hasn’t had that much fun playing golf in a long time. That’s encouraging to me, and I expect him to chase that feeling again and be at the top of the leaderboard again in July. — Kalland
FedEx Cup champion
Daniel Berger — If there is one category to get weird with predicting, it is the FedEx Cup champion. Berger stands inside the top 15, and I expect him to win before the Tour Championship rolls around meaning he will be among the top handful in terms of starting strokes. He has an unbelievable record at TPC Southwind — the first venue in the FedEx Cup Playoffs — and if he can pick that one up and the elevated points, then he will be in great position heading into East Lake. Scheffler and McIlroy are the easy answers, but if you’re looking for someone out of left field, Berger is the choice given how well he has been playing in 2025. — McDonald
Rory McIlroy — I think Scheffler will have the points lead going into the Tour Championship, but McIlroy edges him in four rounds around East Lake. If he can arrive there in anything close to the form he showed generally over the first half of the season, I like him to win on a course he’s comfortable playing where he’s shown he can consistently go low. — Kalland
PGA Tour Player of the Year
Scottie Scheffler — It’s a two-horse race at the moment (unless Sepp Straka snags a major championship coming down the stretch). I’ll side with the world No. 1 here as it would be unsurprising if he wins 4-5 tournaments by year’s end including another major championship as mentioned above. He has title defense after title defense lined up this summer, and as he has proven throughout his career, Scheffler summons some of his best golf when faced with going back-to-back. In 10 starts in 2025, Scheffler has yet to finish outside the top 25 and has rattled off five straight top fives. — McDonald
Rory McIlroy — This race gets real interesting if Scheffler can win another major, but even so, if McIlroy can pick up two more wins this season — in any events — he locks this up. That’d be five wins plus completing the career grand slam, and unless Scottie goes three-for-three on majors to end the year, the story of the season will be Rory — and that tends to be how players vote. We saw that last year with the Schauffele-Scheffler debate. — Kalland
Ryder Cup MVP (United States)
Justin Thomas — If the U.S. is to recapture the cup on home soil, Thomas will have to come up huge, and he will be itching to do so. An omission from the 2024 Presidents Cup, the energetic American makes his return in New York. His newfound confidence on the greens will make him a handful to play against, and if he drives the ball competently across three days of competition, then an undefeated record is not out of the question. — McDonald
Bryson DeChambeau — If the U.S. is going to win the Cup, they’re going to need someone to embrace the pandemonium that will be Bethpage Black. I don’t think anyone will steer more into the skid than DeChambeau, who figures to be the emotional heart of the American side this fall. The man treats every major crowd like a Ryder Cup crowd already, pumping them up after made putts and running along the rope lines to give out high fives. The biggest concern is he gets overly focused on being a crowd pleaser in front of an incredibly rowdy bunch, but generally, he will be a good foil to Scheffler’s “tune out the noise” tendencies at the top of the U.S. team. — Kalland
Ryder Cup MVP (Europe)
Jon Rahm — There is just a presence he carries, and he won’t shy away from those pesky New York fans. Rahm was terrific in Rome alongside Viktor Hovland and Hatton, and I expect him to be terrific again in New York. Major championship contention throughout 2025 will give him recent experience in the heat of the battle, and he will put it to good use. If there are golf gods, they will give us the third straight edition of Rahm vs Scheffler in Sunday singles. — McDonald
Sepp Straka — On the European side, getting really good performances from guys who aren’t their stars would be the quickest way to quiet the crowd in New York. If Straka can carry his form from the first half of this year through into September, he looks like a player who can pose some serious problems for the Americans. The big Austrian is elite with his driving accuracy and iron play, which is the kind of combo that can apply steady pressure to opponents at a place like Bethpage. If Europe is going to retain the Cup, it’ll need some new Ryder Cup heroes to emerge, and Straka is my pick as a potential thorn in the American’s side. — Kalland