After eight months and 39 tournaments, the 2025 PGA Tour season has come to an end. The calendar draws closer to next year’s Sentry and strays further from the most recent Masters as clocks continue to click and time continues to pass us by. It’s easy forget all that took place this past season given the number of events that were played and how many storylines transpired, so we decided to wrap it all up — the good, the bad and everything in between.
The season opener in Kapalua seems like ages ago as Hideki Matsuyama set the all-time scoring record in relation to par the first week of the year. Come the last week of the season, Matsuyama maintained only one top-10 finish in his 2025 campaign, albeit a big one at that.
Wonky statistics such as the one above, out-of-the-blue winners, unlikely characters emerging — it was all part of what made the 2025 season such a memorable one. Oh yeah, that Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy making a fair share of their own noise throughout the year.
Let’s hand out some end-of-year awards that will allow us to remember the eight months that just transpired.
PGA Tour Player of the Year
Scottie Scheffler: Wash, rinse and repeat. For the fourth straight season, Scheffler was the best player on the PGA Tour, but even this year was a step up from his prior efforts. He won a major championship away from Augusta National for the first time in his career, which kicked him onto the path of immortality and he made a large leap when he lulled everyone to sleep with his most complete performance at The Open.
Add in a postseason victory, a successful defense at the Memorial and a record-setting win in his home state of Texas, and Scheffler left no doubt after a slow start to the year no thanks to an unlikely injury over the holidays. He is the first golfer since Tiger Woods to lock up back-to-back seasons of 5+ wins, and he did so by leading the following statistical categories on the PGA Tour.
Takes a deep breath (some were removed due for brevity)
- Official money
- Total strokes gained
- Strokes gained tee to green
- Strokes gained off the tee
- Strokes gained approach
- GIR percentage from fairway
- Scrambling
- Scoring average (adjusted)
- Scoring average (actual)
- Scoring average before cut
- Par breakers
- Bounce back
- Birdie to bogey ratio
- Birdie average
- Birdie or better percentage
- Bogey avoidance
- Par 4 scoring
- Par 5 scoring
- Final round performance
- Round 1 scoring average
- Round 2 scoring average
- Front 9 scoring average
- Back 9 scoring average
- Early scoring average
- Late scoring average
- Best sub-par round streak
- YTD rounds in 60s streak
- Top-10 finishes streak
- Wins
Tournament of the Year
The Masters: How could it be anything other than the Masters? McIlroy solidified his place in the annals of history by completing the career grand slam in the most Rory fashion ever. McIlroy started the final round with a two-stroke lead and visited each of his major championship graves on his way to a lifetime of glory.
A date with Bryson DeChambeau in the final round saw McIlroy start in the uneasiest of fashions as DeChambeau walked off the second green with his name atop of the leaderboard. McIlroy eventually marched past him while overcoming all of his previous woes on this stage — poor wedge play, missed short putts on the greens, ghosts of Augusta National past such as the tee shot on No. 10.
Other characters such as Scheffler, Ludvig Åberg and Patrick Reed all entered the fray, but ultimately, it fellow European Justin Rose who rose to the occasion. After a bogey on his 71st hole, the Englishman made birdie on his final hole of regulation to apply some additional pressure to McIlroy, who needed par on the last for the win.
Unable to get up-and-down after missing the green right with a wedge in hand from the middle of the fairway, McIlroy met Rose in a playoff. It was there Rory rectified his mistake in regulation with the same club from the same yardage and finally got his hands on the long-awaited green jacket.
Shot of the Year
McIlroy’s approach into No. 15 in final round of Masters: McIlroy experienced everything on No. 15 en route to his win at Augusta National — he chipped the ball into the water and made double bogey on Thursday, made another stellar swing with a 6 iron to set up the lone eagle on Saturday and hit the pearl of all pearls in the final round to steady the ship after hitting some rocky waters the two holes prior.
There were so many incredible swings from McIlroy in this Masters victory that one could highlight (both good and bad) — the wedge in the playoff to seal the deal, the long iron into No. 17 to push him one up over Rose, the approach shot from the trees on No. 7 or even the wedge into No. 13 that opened the tournament back up — but the ripping 7 iron around the trees is the one that will be replayed the most not only this year but for decades to come. Indeed, it was the “shot of a lifetime,” as Jim Nantz tagged it.
Breakout Player
J.J. Spaun: From battling for his job in 2024 to becoming a top 10 player in the world, no one proved more (even to himself) than Spaun. The season began with a solid Florida swing, including a runner-up finish at PGA National and a playoff defeat to McIlroy at The Players Championship. Spaun’s campaign was characterized by a substantial stride with his iron play and a quick learning curve in the moment.
He mentioned that The Players loss did a lot for his confidence as he now knew he belonged with the world’s best, and he as much at the U.S. Open where he emerged from a crowded leaderboard at a wet, rainy and downright ugly Sunday at Oakmont Country Club. Another playoff loss to Rose came in the postseason as Spaun was just a couple bounces away from winning not only a major but two of the other biggest tournaments on the PGA Tour schedule. He climbed as high as world No. 6 and automatically qualified for his first U.S. Ryder Cup team.
Most Disappointing Player
Xander Schauffele: The world No. 3 saw his season hit a speed bump when he was forced to take time away from the game due to an intercostal strain in his ribs. He returned during the Florida swing to poor results, and although his game improved over the course of his year, it never returned to the level of his 2024 where he was clearly the second-best player in the world and perhaps the most complete as well.
Schauffele did not claim a single top-five finish in 2025, missed the Tour Championship for the first time in his career and ended up No. 42 in the FedEx Cup standings. While he did pick up top 10 finishes in two majors, Schauffele’s 2025 was a lost season considering what he accomplished the year prior.
Most Heartwarming Moment
Tommy Fleetwood winning FedEx Cup: So many stories got a fairytale ending in 2025, Fleetwood’s was among them. After experiencing excruciating losses at the Travelers Championship and the FedEx St. Jude Championship over the summer, the Englishman arrived at the PGA Tour’s season finale still without a win on his résumé.
He changed all that with an impressive victory at East Lake, raising the FedEx Cup trophy after the decision was made in May to change the format of the Tour Championship so that all players started at even par. Fleetwood took advantage of it and kept knocking on the door before finally stepping through. He nabbed the largest paycheck of his career — and the season — along with plenty of hugs from friends, family and PGA Tour peers. He also put a bow on the best season of his career; from a statistical point of view, only Scheffler and McIlroy were better in 2025.
Most Bizarre Winner
Brian Campbell: If anything, this is a compliment. In an era of golf where speed is everything and players aim to swing the club as fast as possible, hit it to the moon and figure it out from there, Campbell has taken a different approach. In 2025, it finally paid off. Campbell finished last in terms of driving distance (279 yards) and second-to-last in terms of ball speed (163 mph), yet he still finished in a tie for third with two wins on the campaign.
He won on a bomber’s paradise at the Mexico Open in a playoff over the longest player on the PGA Tour (Aldrich Potgieter) and then again won in a playoff at the John Deere Classic. In his 20 other starts, Campbell collected no other top-30 finishes, missed 10 cuts and was forced to withdraw two times. He saw the weekend a total of 10 times in 2025, and by Sunday, he found the winner’s circle 20% of the time.
Story of the Year
Keegan Bradley potentially serving as Ryder Cup playing captain: When it came to what was happening outside the ropes, the possibility of Bradley including himself on the U.S. Ryder Cup roster was the conversation for much of 2025. A steady start to his year made such a move seem unlikely before Bradley experienced a stretch of finishes that consisted of a T8 at the PGA Championship, T7 at the Memorial, T33 at the U.S. Open and a win at the Travelers Championship.
The volume was dialed all the way up and the questions became more persistent from there. Bradley ultimately decided not to play a dual role — instead focusing on his captaincy — for next month’s Ryder Cup, one of the most unselfish moves from a leader in sports. After getting picked over in 2023, Bradley performed even better in 2025 yet picked over himself as his own captaincy was the only item standing between him playing his first Ryder Cup in over a decade.